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ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS 



David Hartley 



AND 



James Mill 



BY 



G, S* BOWER, M. A. 

■ 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

27 and 29 West 2 3D Street 

1881 



^ 






o 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

Their Lives. 



Ch. I. David Hartley 
Ch. II. James Mill 



PAGE 

1 



PART II. 

Their Philosophical Systems and Opinions. 

I. Preliminary remarks on the Theory of Association of 
Ideas — The Physical Groundwork of the Theory — 
Hartley's Yibrations — James Mill and Hartley on 
Sensations — Ideas as copies of Sensations . 
II. The Elementary Postulates, and First Propositions, of 
the Theory of Association as laid down by Hartley and 
James Mill ........ 

III. The Communication of Ideas — Language — Naming 
IV. The Theory of Association, as applied to explain the 
more important processes and operations of the mind . 
Y. Belief, as interpreted by the laws of Association 
VI. Leading metaphysical conceptions, forms, and reia- 
tions, as accounted for on the theory of Association 
— Sameness — Similarity — Succession — Causality — Ex 
tension — Motion — Quantity — Quality — Analogy — In 

duction 

Ch. VII. The Active Powers of the Human Mind 
Ch. VIII. The Will, as explained by Hartley and Mill . 



Ch. 



Ch. 



Ch. 
Ch. 

Ch. 
Cn. 



24 



37 

46 

65 
79 



111 
136 
164 



r 



IV 



COX TENTS. 



Or. IX. The Practical Laws of Ethics, as resulting from the prin 
ciples of Association and Utility 

Ch. X. The .Esthetic Doctrines of Hartley and Mill . 

Ch. XI. The Principles of Utilitarianism and Association, as ap 
plied by Hartley and James Mill to special depart 
mentg of Practical Life — Politics — Legislation — Edu 
cation — International Law 



178 
191 



198 



PART III. 

The Value and Influence of theik Opinions 



. 214 



Bibliographical Appendix 



. 247 



HARTLEY & JAMES MILL. 

part L 

THEIR LIVES. 
CHAPTER I. 

DAVID HARTLEY. 

Datid Hartley, the son of a clergyman residing at Armley 
in Yorkshire, was born on the 30th of August, 1705. He 
was educated at a private school, and, in 1720, entered at Jesus 
College, Cambridge, of which society he subsequently became 
a fellow. Owing to conscientious scruples with reference to 
the Thirty-nine Articles, he abandoned his preparation for the 
clerical profession, for which he was originally intended ; and 
thenceforth applied himself to the study of medicine. Com- 
mencing practice at Newark, he afterwards removed to Bury 
St. Edmund's, and thence to London. In the later years of 
his life, he took up his residence at Bath. In the exercise of 
his functions as a physician, he was sympathetic, assiduous, 
and skilful. He especially devoted himself to the study and 
cure of the stone, and was the author of several medical 
pamphlets on Mrs. Stephens' medicine for that disease, 1 besides 

' " Observations made on the persons who have taken the medicament 
of Mrs. Stephens," 1738. " View of the present evidence for and against 
Mrs. Stephens' medicine as a solvent for the stone, containing 155 cases" 

B 



2 HA R TL EY A XD J A MES MIL L . 

being the instrument of finally procuring for her the reward 
of 5000/. offered by Parliament. 2 He is said to have written 
against Dr. Warren in defence of inoculation for smallpox; 
and several other of his medical disquisitions are to he found 
in the Philosophical Transactions of the time. He was twice 
married, and had issue by both marriages. He died on the 
2Sth of August, 1757; at Bath, of the disease which he had 
so patiently investigated in his lifetime. 

Both the philosophical and the moral character of Hartley 
were no less conspicuous in his life than in his writings. 
Philosophically, he was remarkable for patience of research, 
variety of study, thorough scientific candour, and a constant 
readiness to receive new impressions and ideas. Morally, he 
was distinguished by modesty, unaffected openness, and bene- 
volence. In the one case, his inquisitiveness of intellect well 
qualified him for a writer on the connexion between body and 
mind, and their reciprocal influence on one another, — a kind of 
inquiry where alertness in the seizing of analogies is above all 
things requisite; in the other, his sympathy of heart was of 
eminent service to him in the observation and appreciation of 
moral phenomena. 

His great work On Man occupied sixteen years of slow 
thought and toil in maturing (1780 — 1746); and even for 
some years before 1730, " the seeds of this work were lying in 
latent germination/' as he himself used to tell his friends. 
One cannot fail to notice the results of this steady and per- 
sistent investigation, (extending over so long a period, and 

[of which his own was one], " with some experiments and observations," 
1739. "Directions for preparing and administering Mrs. Stephens' 
medicine in a solid form," 1746 (in the Gentleman s Magazine). A large 
ingredient in this medicine was soap, of which the unfortunate Hartley 
was said to have himself consumed 200 lbs. before he eventually died of 
the disease. 

2 Gazette, June, 1739. 



DAVID HARTLEY. 



into so many different fields), in the astonishing 1 wealth of 
illustrative matter by which the principles laid down in his 
"book are confirmed. It was first published in two volumes in 
1749. Another edition b\ r Dr. Priestley with elucidatory 
dissertations appeared in 1775. In this the vibration theory, 
and most of the Second Part on theological questions, were 
omitted. But the book was, notwithstanding, practically 
almost ignored till 1791. In 1801, Hartley's son published 
the entire work, in three volumes, from the German of the 
Rev. Dr. Herman Andrew Pistorius, rector of Poseritz, in the 
island of Riigen, accompanied with the latter's notes and 
essays. 3 Hartley himself was not at all sanguine as to the 
chances of the immediate acceptance of his novel theory. " He 
did not expect that it would meet with any general or imme- 
diate reception in the philosophical world, or even that it 
would be much read or understood ; neither did it happen 
otherwise than as he had expected. But at the same time he 
did entertain an expectation that, at some distant period, it 
would become the adopted system of future philosophers. 
That period" [writes his son in 1801] " seems now to be 
approaching," — and by this time it has arrived, and a formi- 
dable and industrious school of philosophy, known as the 
Association Psychology, has been constituted on the lines 
sketched out by him. 

From a very early age, Hartley had a fancy for natural 
science, experimental philosophy, and mathematics, which he 
studied under the tuition of a celebrated man in his day, 
Professor Saunderson. To optics, statics, and other special 
departments of science, he devoted himself in company with 
Dr. Hales, Dr. Smith (then Master of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge), and some other members of the Royal Society. He 

3 This is the edition to which the references throughout this work are 
made. 

B % 



4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

was a keen observer, in the exercise of his professional duties, 
of physical peculiarities and habits, and mental diseases and 
defects; and acquired early the habit of sound and rapid gene- 
ralization, which proved so useful to him in the construction 
of his philosophical system. Historical and chronological 
researches also claimed a large portion of his spare time; and 
he was on intimate terms with N. Hooke, the Roman his- 
torian. In chronology, so far as physical science could be 
brought to bear on its numerous problems, as indeed in all 
hinds of natural science, he was an ardent admirer and dis- 
ciple of Newton, whose Principia and other works first 
suggested to him the theory of vibrations. He was much 
interested in all schemes for the reformation of language, 
either as written, (e.g. methods of short-hand), or as written 
and spoken both; and welcomed proposals of universal and 
philosophical languages and dictionaries, and similar fresh 
ideas. 

But it was to mental science, ethics, and theology that 
Hartley's tastes were principally drawn. In regard to these 
subjects, the intellectual atmosphere in which he lived was 
that of Edmund Law, Warburton, Butler, and Jortin, who 
were his intimate associates and fellow-labourers both in these 
fields and in that of ecclesiastical history. It was, however — 
as he himself acknowledges, with his usual candour — from 
one Mr. Gay that he derived, the germ of his association 
theory — at all events, as applied to morals. It was only the 
germ, however, that he obtained ; and how fruitful Gay's two 
short treatises became in Hartley's hands it only needs a 
comparison of them with the latter philosopher's second 
volume to show. In the latter part of his life he corresponded 
very much with Dr. Priestley on their common subject. 

Nor did Hartley neglect the more distinctly humanizing 
studies of history, poetry, and art. Of the first of these 



DA VID HARTLEY. 5 

means of cultivation lie was especially fond. He was a great 
admirer of some of the poets of his own country, such as Pope, 
whom he respected not only as a man of genius, but also, and 
chiefly, because he was a poet who " moralized his song," and 
pursued by a different road the same goal as himself. On 
similar grounds he was interested in Dr. Young, and also in 
Hawkins Browne, the author of a Latin poem, De Anhni 
Immortalifafe. It must be confessed, however, that Hartley 
does not seem to have been a very enthusiastic lover of poetry, 
except as a veil for philosophy, and that he was disposed to 
regard the exercise of the imagination too much in a didac- 
tical light. Owing* to this latter attitude of mind, he even 
took offence at the Essay on Man, which he thought inspired 
by Bolingbroke, and calculated to weaken the force and 
inviolability of the moral law, of which — though charac- 
teristically charitable in judging individual instances of its 
perversion in practice — he was extremely jealous. To the 
" lewd " poets, who discoursed of love and beauty, entirely 
unmoved by the puzzles of metaphysics and morals, he felt — 
and frequently displayed in his works — a hearty aversion. In 
music he took a nassionate delight. 

J. o 

He was also a fair classical scholar; and the first prelimi- 
nary sketch of his system — a little treatise, Be Sensu, Motu, 
et Idearum Generatione, which he published in the form of 
an appendix to a medical tractate on the stone — was written 
in elegant Latin. With Hebrew he seems to have been at 
all events moderately well acquainted. 

All these varied tastes were reflected in the pages of his 
work, as we shall have occasion to remark below. 4 So, also, 

* See Part. III. Cp. the Life by Hartley's son, Observations on Man, 
Tol. ii. p. ix. ''It was from the union of talents in the moral sciences 
with natural philosoplvy, and particularly from the professional knowledge 
of the human frame, that Dr. Hartley was enabled to bring into one view 



1L \ R TL E Y AND 7 A J/I-S MILL. 



was his personal character. His amiability 3 — no pen was 
ever freer from gall than his, and in the whole of his work 
we do not End a single harsh criticism of a personal nature, 
while his kindly appreciation and recognition of the labours 
of his precursors is abundant and marked — his openness, and 
his easy-going laissez-faire tendencies, — all these are mani- 
fest in the tone of his recorded opinions, and the style of his 
writing. As his son says, "it may with peculiar propriety 
said of him, that the mind was the man/' His philo- 
sophical character was only his personal character in one of 
its aspects. 

Hartley's was a quiet, useful, unromantic life, — unromantic 
in all ./espects, except in that steady devotion to truth and 
i'aet which tinges the most uneventful life with a hue of 
romance,— too often of pathos. Eminently typical of the 
century in which he lived, — comfortable, and ready to com- 
fort others, — disposed to ponder and wait, not very prone 
to action, unambitious,— he was always in a mood to make 
allowances for the frailty of others, and to take things as 
they came, while he was utterly destitute of the " passion for 
reforming the world/' which possessed James Mill. On the 
other hand, if his life was not lit up by such noble aims as that 
of his great successor, he had all the compensating advantages 
incidental to a lack of enthusiasm. While he was not to 
same extent as Mill the cause of good to unseen masses 
en, he made far more friends and intimates out of those 
whom he did know. The bitterness and violence, which in 
Mill's case were engendered by consuming earnestness, were 
unknown to him. No zeal could eat him up. His philo- 
sophical system was not converted by him into a dogma or 

the various argument* for his extensive system, from the first rudiments 
d through the maze of complex affections and passions in the 
of lif'', to the final, moral end of man." 



DAVID HARTLEY. 



discipline; by thus having' no practical reference, while it 
won him no partisan s, it made him no enemies. 

Though accurate and precise in his reasoning, and metho- 
dical in his daily habits, Hartley was far removed alike from 
pedantry and fussiness. He was polished and gay in society, 
and eloquent in conversation, without becoming importunate 
or a bore; and he was entirely without the vices of pride, 
selfishness, sensuality, or disingenuousness. In the endeavour 
to suggest the proper associations of ideas to the minds of 
others, and to form their habits on the lines, and with the 
help, of their position and previous circumstances, he was 
" the faithful disciple of his own theory/' He did what some 
one has said should always be done by every man, whether 
Libertarian or, like Hartley, an advocate of the doctrines ot 
Necessity : in actual life he regarded himself alone as free, and 
all other men as determined. 

" His person was of the middle size and well proportioned : 
his complexion fair, his features regular and handsome; his 
countenance open, ingenuous, and animated. He was pecu- 
liarly neat in his person and attire. He was an early riser, 
and punctual in the employments of the day; methodical in 
the order and disposition of his library, papers, and writings, 
as the companions of his thought."" {Observations on Man 
[Life), vol. ii., pp. xvii, xviii]. 

During the nine years that elapsed between the completion 
of his book and his death, Hartley, though reposing from 
active work and collection of materials in reference to it, 
continued to keep his mind open to any further suggestions 
or discoveries that might have the effect of destroying or 
modifying any of his doctrines. None such, however, were 
made of any materiality sufficient to render an alteration of 
his Observations necessary. 



HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



CHAPTER IT. 

JAMES MILL. 

James Mill was born at North water Bridge, in the parish of 
Logic Pert, in the county of Angus, on the 6th of April, 
1 7 73. His father, a shoemaker, lived in one of the little two- 
roomed clay-built cottages, some dozen of which made up a 
hamlet of the parish. Industry, soberness, and piety, with- 
out any remarkable gifts of intellect, distinguished the elder 
James Mill in his life and vocation. The mother, Isabel 
Fenton, was a woman of a somewhat different stamp. She 
was proud — (being the daughter of a substantial farmer, who 
had been in very good circumstances before he joined in the 
Stuart rising of 1745, she probably felt her marriage to have 
been something of a descent, and was not slow in manifesting 
her feelings to her neighbours, and in domineering over their 
wives) — but, together with her pride, possessed some of the 
good qualities which usually spring out of it. She was most 
ambitions for her eldest son James, and soon determined to 
rear him to some destiny higher than his father's workshop. 
Her influence over her husband was successfully exerted for 
this purpose, for we find no record of James having ever been 
required by his parents to assist in his father's trade, or 
indeed, engage in any manual labour; while there are 
"emphatic assurances," as Professor Bain 1 tells us, to the 

1 Life of James Mill, Mind, vol. i. p. 101. 






JAMES MILL. 9 



contrary. William/ the second son, took to the family 
business, but the tender hand of his mother reserved James 
exclusively for study. So that it must be remembered that 
to her pride and motherly interest we, in some degree, owe 
the Analysis and the History of British India. 

At Montrose Academ}^ one of the Scotch grammar-schools, 
James acquired the rudiments of a good classical education, 
and meanwhile received kindly and constant encouragement 
in his studies and aspirations from the minister of his parish, 
Mr. Peters. At about the age of eighteen he came under the 
notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairn, one of the Barons 
of the Exchequer in Scotland, a man who, though reputed in 
the neighbourhood to have been haughty and morose, must 
always command our respect for his fidelity to his young 
friend. By Sir John and Lady Jane Stuart's influence 
James Mill was sent, in the year 1790, to the University 
of Edinburgh, under the following circumstances: — " Some 
pious ladies/'' writes Mr. Bisset, 3 " amongst whom was Lady 
Jane Stuart (she was then ' Belsches'), " having established a 
fund for educating one or two young men for the Church, 
Lady Jane applied to the Rev. Mr. Foote, minister of Fetter- 
cairn, to recommend some one. Mr. Foote applied to Mr. 
Peters of Logie Pert, who recommended James Mill, both 
on account of his own abilities, and the known good character 
of the parents." It was a great advantage to Mill to be able 
to go to Edinburgh at a mature age (for a Scotch university), 
instead of receiving his education as a boy at Aberdeen, as, 
without the intervention of the Stuarts, he would in the 
ordinary course have been compelled to do. Being at this 
period destined for the Church, he was bound to frame his 

2 Besides the two sons there was a daughter, Mary, who was the 
youngest child. 

3 In the article on James Mill, in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 



1 3 HA K TL E Y A XD J A MES MILL. 



course of study accordingly. Moral philosophy in the first 
place was required; nor, had it not been, can we imagine 
Mill neglecting it, more especially as the professor and lec- 
turer was Stewart, of whose discourses on this subject he ever 
afterwards spoke with the greatest enthusiasm, even declaring 
that their eloquence was superior to that of the most admired 
speeches of Pitt and Fox. He is recorded in the registers of 
the university as having attended the Greek, Latin, natural 
philosophy, and logic classes, between 1790 and 1798. There 
is no mention of mathematics, but it is probable that he 
attended this class, because of Playfair's reputation, and also 
because he could scarcely have otherwise begun natural phi- 
losophy and Newton's Principia under Robison. John Stuart 
Mill {Autobiography) supposes that he may have also studied 
in the medical classes at this time. 

During his residence at Edinburgh James Mill became 
acquainted with a variety of men, who subsequently became 
distinguished in their different walks of life, and some of 
whom kept up their intimacy with him to the last. Among 
these were Brougham, who probably then commenced a 
friendship which did not terminate with his Chancellor- 
ship, Professor AVallace, Thomas M'Crie, John Leyden, 
Jeffrey, and Mountstuart Elphinstone. 

Mill's divinity studies proper began in 1794, and lasted 
for tour winters. Professor Bain gives a curious list of the 
works which he took out from the Theological Library at 
this period, which shows very fairly the bent of his mind. A 
large proportion of these are philosophical, such as Alison on 
Taste, of which he afterwards made considerable use in the 
Analysis, Cudworth's Morality, Smith's Theory of Moral Sen- 
timenls (to which he also refers in the Analysis), Locke, Reid, 
Hume, Rousseau, Bolingbroke, Ferguson, Jortin (a friend of 
Hartley's), and especially Plato, of whose influence (strange 



JAMES MILL. ii 



as it may seem) many traces are to be found in the method, 
and even sometimes in the tone, of his philosophy. In other 
departments of literature, we find him reading' Rousseau's 
Emile and Discours, Massillon's Sermons, Karnes's Sketches, 
HakewelPs Apology, Campbell on Rhetoric, CEuvres de Fene- 
L»n, Maupertuis, Abernethie's Sermons, Whitby on the Five 
Points, &c. He must, therefore, have become by this time 
a very fair French scholar. But one sees that divinity was 
not occupying- a very large share of his time. However, on 
the 1st of February, 1797, he is introduced by Mr. Peters to 
the Presbytery of Brechin, with his proper certificates, to be 
licensed as a preacher. After the due amount of "questionaiy 
trials/' probationary sermons, lectures, homilies, and the like, 
he is formally licensed on the 4th of October, 1798. He 
began to preach in the church of Logie Pert. Those who 
heard him said that his voice was "loud and clear," but we 
are told that " the generality of the hearers complained of not 
being able to understand him •/' and we may easily imagine 
that his discourses were somewhat over the heads of the good 
people of Logie Pert. He also preached in Edinburgh, where 
Sir David Brewster heard him. From 1790 to 1802, Mill 
acted as private tutor in the Feltercairn family, (where, 
during the vacations of his Edinburgh course, he instructed 
ZNIi?s Stuart, 4 for whom he always preserved the warmest 
affection), and also in the family of Mr. Burnet at Aberdeen, 
(this tutorship he is reported to have given up, owing to an 
insult put upon him at a dinner-party), and in some others. 
The tradition as to his having been tutor to the Marquis of 
Tweeddale does not appear to be substantiated. These tutor- 

4 This was the lady who married the son of the banker, Sir "William 
Forbes, and was the mother of a distinguished Edinburgh Professor of 
Natural Philosophy, James David Forbes. Sir "Walter Scott was vehe- 
mently, but fruitlessly, devoted to her before her marriage. 



12 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

ships wore his first source of income. Meanwhile his parents 
were becoming somewhat reduced in circumstances. James 
Mill generally spent what time was spared him from his 
university studies and tutorial engagements at his home, of 
which we have the following picture by Professor Bain: 
" The best room of the house contained two beds along* the 
right hand wall ; in that room the mother hung up a canvas 
curtain ('cannas' it was called, being what is laid on the 
threshing-floor to keep the corn together) ; thus cutting off 
from the draught and from the gaze, the further end of the 
room, including James's bed, the fire, and the gable window. 
This was his study. . . . Here lie had his book-shelves, his 
little round table and chair, and the gable window-sill for a 
temporary shelf. He had his regular pedestrian stretches; 
one secluded narrow glen is called ( James Mill's walk/ He 
avoided people on the road ; and was called haughty, shy, or 
reserved, according to the point of view of the critic. . . . His 
meals were taken alone in his screened study; and were pro- 
vided by his mother, expressly for his supposed needs." Cer- 
tainly it cannot be said that James Mill was not appreciated 
by his parents, at all events hy his mother. Nor did he lack 
sympathetic friends in David Barclay, Peters, and others, at 
Logie Pert, besides his little knot of associates in Edin- 
burgh. 

In the beginning of 1802- all preaching and tutorial work 
was given up, and James Mill went up to London in company 
with Sir John Stuart. Now commenced his journalistic 
career, into which he entered with zeal and energy. Imme- 
diately on his arrival in London we find him recounting in a 
letter to his Edinburgh friend, Thomas Thomson (a well- 
known devotee of science, and especially chemistry), his 
literary adventures and prospects. He was delighted with 
the large scope which London life afforded to an ambitious 



JAMES MILL, 



spirit, as compared with the life of his ec over-cautious country- 
men at home/'' where "everybody represses you, if you but 
propose to step out of the beaten track." He obtained intro- 
ductions from Thomas Thomson to Dr. Robert Bisset, and Dr. 
Gifford, editor of the Ant i- Jacobin Revieio. Besides this, he 
takes the greatest interest in politics, and often goes to the 
House of Commons to hear the speeches of Pitt, Fox, and 
Sheridan. Of the eloquence of the other members whom he 
heard he had the lowest possible opinion. He has an idea of 
starling a class of jurisprudence, and of entering one of the 
Inns of Court, for that purpose, but subsequently abandons it. 
It may be inferred that he had studied law, or at all events 
the philosophy of law, at Edinburgh, and had perhaps begun 
to study Bentham in Dumont's translation. His first few 
weeks in London were thus full of hopes and schemes and 
enthusiasm. 

He soon gets into harness as a journalist. Dr. Bisset first 
of all tried him as an occasional writer on politics. For Dr. 
Giffbrd's Anti- Jacobin Review he writes his first philosophical 
production, a review of Belsham's Elements of Logic and Mental 
Philosophy, which is very interesting as containing an attack 
on Hartley's theory of vibrations, and also on the selfish 
theory of morals, which " imposes an obligation to be vicious, 
removes the moral character of the Deity, and renders it im- 
possible to prove a future state/' An argument appears in 
this connexion, which seems to reflect a turning-point in the 
history of his religious belief. He contends that till the 
moral attributes of God are proved, it is useless to offer proofs 
of revelation. " Unless I know that God is true, how do I 
know that His Word is true?" Another article from his 
pen followed shortly after this in the same Revieio — on his 
friend Thomson's System of Chemistry. 

Besides reviewing for Dr. Gifford, he is now writing articles 



I 4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

for the Encyclopedia Britannica, on which he hopes to be able 
to support himself at least for a year. " I am willing* to 
labour hard and live penuriously," he writes to Thomson in 
May, 'and it will be devilish hard, if a man, good for any- 
thing, cannot keep himself alive hereon these terms." The 
rewriting and rearrangement for Dr. Hunter of a work called 
_\ v Delineated, brought him in some more money, besides 
making him known to the booksellers; so that at the end of 
May lie was able to take rooms by the year in Surrey Street, 
with an old pupil of Thomson's. Meanwhile he was attending 
the debates in the House of Commons with the keenest 
interest. In November Mill had an opportunity of showing 
his powers not only as a contributor, but as an editor as well. 
Together with Baldwin he projected a new periodical, to be 
" devoted to the dissemination of liberal and useful know- 
ledge/' called the Li/erary Journal. It was to embrace 
Physics, Literature, Manners, Politics, to commence in 
January, 1803, and to be issued weekly in shilling numbers. 
Mill was to be editor and contributor for four years. He 
corresponded extensively with all his friends, in order to get 
stance in the various departments, and especially took 
counsel with Thomson, whose brother James was to undertake 
the Literature and Philosophy of the Mind. Thomas Brown, 
the metaphysician, was also thought of; but, whether he 
accepted the offer or not, we are not told. Most of the Edin- 
burgh contributions were very good, but those from London 
quite the reverse. " His energies and his hopes," Professor 
Bain tells us, " were concentrated in the success of his bold 
design. It was no small achievement for a young man to 
have induced a publisher to make the venture. But he had 
the power of getting people to believe in him. He was also 
cut out for a man of business, and shows it now as an editor.'" 
The first year of the Literary Journal contains some curious 






JAMES MILL. 15 



articles either written or inspired by Mill, such as an essay on 
the structure of the Platonic dialogue (he always maintained 
his admiration for the Platonic mode of philosophical pro- 
dare), another (curiously enough) to prove that Utility is not 
the foundation of virtue, and another on Stewart's Life of 
field, wherein some of his well-known opinions on the neces- 
sity of bringing early influences systematically to bear on 
children are for the first time expressed. In the year 180-4 
were produced (amongst others) a thoroughly characteristic 
paper on religious feeling as distinguished from action/ and 
several reviews of apologetic treatises in theology, most of 
which he is inclined to discourage. In 1805 Mill continues 
the Journal, and also publishes his translation of Villers' work 
on the Reformation, adding very copious notes of his own, in 
which he quotes largely from, and refers to, Dugald Stewart, 
Robertson, George Campbell, &c, expresses here and there his 
poor opinion of Voltaire, who " used not only lawful but 
poisoned arms against religion and liberty,"" and warmly 
defends the books of the Bible as comprising "the extraordi- 
nary code of laws communicated by a benevolent divinity to 
man/'' Villers' Kantism is also thrown in his teeth : conse- 
quently, since Mill was a conscientious man, we must presume 
that he had made himself acquainted with the writings and 
arguments of Kant (probably in some French translation) : 
also that he was as yet far from having reached the purely 
negative standpoint in religion. In this year Mill further 
commenced his editorship of the St. James's Chronicle, about 
which unfortunately little is known. The proprietor was 
Baldwin, his co-adventurer in the Journal. The paper lasted 
for at least two or three years, possibly more. In 1806 the 

5 "Religion," he says in it, " without reason may be feeling, it may be 
the tremors of the religious nerve, but it cannot be piety towards God, 
or love towards man." 



16 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



form of the literary Journal was altered. Henceforth it was 
announced that a Second Series would come out monthly, and 
that the plan of the contents would be somewhat varied. This 
year contains an article on Tooke's Diversions of Pur ley, which 
is a book well-known in connexion with the obsolete philology 
of the Analysis, a severe one on Payne Knight's Principles of 
Taste, and some reviews on works of Political Economy. In 
one of the articles a reviewer, whether with or without the 
editor's sanction, takes the side of the clergy against Dngald 
Stewart and Leslie. 

Soon after its transformation, however, the Literary Journal 
had to be given up. Apparently, it had not succeeded. The 
Chronicle, as we have said, was also abandoned not very long 
after this date. By these steps a large portion of Mill's income 
was withdrawn. His burdens, moreover, were increasing, 
since his marriage had taken place in the preceding year to 
Harriet Burrow, a lady of considerable beauty and grace, but 
to whose lack of the necessary intellectual requirements he 
was at the time quite blind. She, on her side, was soon dis- 
appointed with the anion, which she expected to be productive 
of more material benefit to herself than it turned out to be. 
Consequently Mill in this year, to meet the growing demands 
of his situation, commenced his famous History of British 
India, which he fondly anticipated would only take three years 
in the writing. It eventually took twelve ! His steady 
friend Sir John Stuart ceased in 1807 to come up to London 
larly for the Parliamentary sessions, and one more support 
in his uphill career was, not indeed withdrawn, but necessarily 
rendered less available. MilPs connexion with the Edin- 
burgh Review (1S08 — 1813) had not yet commenced. A 
variety of circumstances therefore combined to render the 
year L807 one of the gloomiest in his life. After such a 
brilliant start, everything now seemed to be working against 



JAMES MILL. 17 



him. In strong contrast with his early letters to David 
Barclay, we find this of the 7th of February, 1807, written in 
a very doleful and desponding" strain : — " I had a letter about 
the beginning of the winter from Mr. Peters, which informed 
me that you were all well, and managing your affairs with 
your usual prosperity, which, you may believe, gave me no 
little pleasure to hear. I should be happy to see it too. 
Have you no good kirk yet in your neighbourhood, which you 
could give me and free me from this life of toil and anxiety 
which I lead here ? This London is a place in which it is 
easier to spend a fortune than to make one. I know not how 
it is ; but I toil hard, spend little, and yet am never the more 
forward." At this time also his father's complicated affairs 
were the cause of a demand being made upon him for 50Z., 
which not a little distressed him ; and altogether the future 
looked decidedly dark. Duriug all this period he is recorded 
to have enjoyed the society of an extensive literary circle, but 
not to have made many friendships in London, owing to the 
strong dislikes which he used with great rapidity to conceive, 
and his unpopularity on other grounds. 6 

But in 1808 came better things. In this year, which was 
a notable one in Mill's career, commenced his friendships with 
Bentham, with Ricardo, with General Miranda, and with 
William Allen, the Quaker and chemist of Plough Court. In 
this year also his intimacy with Brougham — he had been 
acquainted with him previously in Edinburgh — was formed, 
as also his connexion with the Edinburgh Review, under the 
editorship of Jeffrey. Each of these friendships' and con- 

6 From this point we may pass much more rapidly over the remaining 
ground, both because Mill's subsequent career was of a more public nature, 
and the works which record it (such as J. S. Mill's Autobiography) are 
more generally known ; and also because Part III. in some measure deals 
with it. 

C 



i S //- / A' TL E V A XI) J A MRS MILL . 

noxious gave its separate and distinguishable colour to Mill's 
habits of thinking, and aims in life, at least during the years 
1808—1819, while some of them influenced him much 
longer. During all this time the History of British India 
was slowly progressing. And in the earlier part of this 
period his views on religion were becoming fixed, and 
approaching more and more nearly to absolute negation. 

The connexion with Bentham was of course the pre- 
dominating influence of his life. Mill used to stay with 
Bentham for short periods at his house (called Barrow Green) - 
at Oxted, in the Surrey hills, during the years 1807—1814; 
and afterwards, during much longer portions of the year, at 
Bentham's new house, Ford Abbey, in Devonshire, during the 
years 1814 — 1817. When in London, Bentham lived in 
Queen's Square, which was some distance from Mill's house at 
Pentonville. Being anxious that Mill should live nearer 
himself, in 1810 he gave him Milton's house, which was 
almost adjoining his own. After a few months, however, 
Mill removed to Newington Green, where he stayed for four 
years. But in 1814 Bentham leased a house in Queen's 
Square to Mill, who thus finally became his neighbour in 
London. 

The intimacy between the two philosophers was not with- 
out those little breaks and pauses — those unphilosophieal 
squabbles — which are familiar to us from such well-known 
histories as that of the intellectual communion of Voltaire 
and Frederick the Great. In later life Bentham used to 
apply harsh expressions to his old admirer and disciple, 
such as " selfishness, coldness/' &c. One day in 1814 we 
road that Bentham was offended because James Mill had 
left off taking his walk with him for a time, and the latter 
writes to suggest that they are in the habit of seeing too 
much of one another. On a later occasion Bentham surrep- 



JAMES 211 LL. i g 



titiously sent over to Mill's house, while the latter was engaged 
in the India Office, to take away from it all the books out of 
his library which lie had allowed him to keep there and use, 
solely owing to some offence which he had taken at his friend's 
neglect. On the whole, however, their sympathy — personal 
and intellectual — was most cordial. 

Ricardo's friendship of course to some extent determined 
Mill's interest in political economy. Miranda's influence is 
important, since it is said to have -contributed to the formation 
of Mill's religious scepticism, in conjunction with the authority 
of Bentham, of whom Miranda was an enthusiastic admirer 
even to the point of desiring to introduce into his native 
country; Spain, a Benthamic code. Mill's connexion with 
Allen, and the joint efforts of the philosopher on the one side, 
and the practical philanthropist and man of science, on the 
other, to ameliorate the education of the poor, are worthy of 
some notice, as they help to explain the former's views on 
education, about which it is evident from all his works, and 
from his son's Autobiography } that he felt very strongly indeed. 
Mill co-operated with Allen in the quarterly journal called 
the Philanthropist y and with Allen, Zachary Macaulay, and 
others, in agitating their various educational projects. Among 
the proposed methods of educating the poor discussed in the 
pages of the Philanthropist were the rival systems of Dr. Bell 
and Mr. Lancaster (a Quaker). Mill, together with Allen, 
espoused the cause of the latter. The battle between the 
Bellites and the Lancastrians, as they called themselves, waged 
long and fiercely in the columns of this journal ; and in the 
course of the controversy a great many interesting educational 
questions were threshed out. The best means of civilizing 
barbarous tribes were also largely considered, as well as the 
systems in use at home for the reformation of criminals by 
means of penitentiary houses, and the like, in connexion with 

c 2 



20 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



which Bentham's Panopticon was examined and approved. 
These and similar subjects, connected with the improvement 
of the condition of the poor in body or in mind all over the 
world, justified the description of the Philanthropist by its 
editor as " a repository for hints and suggestions calculated 
to promote the comfort and happiness of man." 

In connexion with Brougham, we may presume that Mill 
became interested in questions of legal reform. The defects 
of the English penal system are pointed out even in the 
Philanthropist, while the Edinburgh Revieio for these years 
contains several articles from Mill's pen on subjects connected 
with law and codification, English and foreign, mainly in 
relation to speculations and proposed improvements issuing 
from Bentham. The younger Mill always thought that 
Brougham exercised a much stronger fascination on his father, 
than was just, and that certain defects of character — such as 
disingenuousness — were far from being compensated for by 
his attractive manner. 

James Mill's contributions to the Edinburgh Review, undei 
Jeffrey's editorship, extended over some years (1808 — 1815). 
Jeffrey used to hack his articles about remorselessly ; and Mill 
often, like other contributors, complained bitterly of this treat- 
ment, but was met with apologies, accompanied, however, by 
steady persistence in the line of conduct reprobated. Jeffrey was 
continually urging Mill to soften his tone of writing, and on 
comparing the Fragment on Mackintosh, for instance, with some 
of the articles by Mill in the Edinburgh Review, as altered by 
Jeffrey, we cannot help feeling that Jeffrey may have been in 
the right. The contributions of Mill during the above- 
mentioned years embraced the following subjects : Political 
Economy [article on Money and Exchange, Oct. 1808], Law a ad 
Codification [Review of Bexon's Code de la Legislation Penale 
— the first of his articles on Bentham's theories — Oct. 1809; 



JAMES MILL. 



article on the part of the Code Napoleon referring to criminal - 
procedure, Nov. 1810], Education [the Lancastrian system is 
discussed in the Feb. number of 1813], Indian Affairs [April 
] 810, article on the government of the East India Company; 
July 1812, review of Malcolm's Sketch of the Political History 
of India ; Nov. 1812, article attacking the commercial mono- 
poly of the Company; July 1813, review of Malcolm's Sketch 
of the SiMs], Religious Toleration [August 1810] ; Politics 
[review of a French treatise, Surla Souverainete, by M. Chas, 
Feb. 1811], the Liberty of the Press [May, 1811] ; and the 
Emancipation and Condition of Spanish America [two articles 
in Jan. and July, 1809, evidently inspired by General 
Miranda]. 

During the years 1815 to 1824, Mill furnished the articles 
to the Encyclopedia Britannica which were afterwards reprinted 
in a separate volume, and have now attained some celebrity. 
In 1817 the History of British India went through the press, 
and on its appearance, at the beginning of 1818, met with a 
rapid success. A second edition was demanded in 1819. 
Meanwhile Mill was gradually rising in the India House, and 
in 1820 he was drawing a salary of 800/. a year from the 
Company, with promotion in store. At this time his old 
friend, Dr. Thomson, the professor of chemistry in Glasgow, 
wrote to inform him of a vacancy in the Greek chair at that 
university. Mill is said to have seriously thought of entering 
himself as a candidate ; but was prevented by considerations 
of the probable opposition of the Tories at the election, the 
necessity of signing the Confession of Faith, his possible 
advancement to the India Office, and the pecuniary loss which 
such a change in his circumstances, even if successfully 
brought about, would entail. 

By gradual advancements, Mill rose in the India House till 
he became chief examiner, in 1830, at a salary of 1200/., 



22 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

which was finally fixed at 20Q0L in 1836, a few months before 
his death. From 1819 to 1830 he was in the revenue depart- 
ment of the Company, and (as J. S. Mill tells us) introduced 
several important reforms into the administration of India, 
more through his large unofficial influence with the directors. 
than by the use of any immediate opportunities afforded him 
by his position. 

The remaining points of interest during this last stage of 
Mill's life [1819 — 1836] are his connexion with the West- 
minster Review (beginning in 1823), his composition of the 
Analysis during six summer holidays at his country house in 
Dorking (18:22—1829), the production in 1821 of the 
Elements of Political Economy, his electioneering efforts in 
Westminster on behalf of philosophical radicalism, his part in 
the institution of the London University (afterwards Univer- 
sity College) for unsectarian education, and his quarrel 7 and 
subsequent reconciliation with Macaulay, whose appointment 
to India he afterwards strongly supported with the directors of 
the Company. 8 One of the most extraordinary educations of 
modern times, familiar to all from the pages of J. S. Mill's 
Autobiography , was being concluded during the first two or 
three years of this period. Meanwhile Mill kept up some of his 
old intimacies, as those with Brougham, Dr. Thomson, and 
Allen, and formed some fresh friendships, as those with Grote, 
the historian, Mrs. Grote, Henry Bickersteth (afterwards 
Lord Langdale and Master of the Rolls, who advised him as 
to the toning down of the Fragment on Mackintosh), John 
Komilly, and Charles Buller. In 1830 Mill left his house in 
Queen's Square and took one in Church Street, Kensington, 
where, as well as at his summer residence in Surrey, he spent 

7 Re Macaulay 's Revieiv of the Essay on Government. 

8 Before setting out for India, Macaulay was earnestly counselled by 
Mill (as J. S. Mill tells us) to keep to the line of an " honest politician." 



JAMES MILL. 23 



the remaining* six years of his life in comfort and prosperity. 
He had now become chief of the India Office. His nine 
children were all gathered round him in his house, and were 
one after the other being educated in the same way as 
J. S. Mill, the eldest, then twenty-four years old, had been 
trained. "For twenty years," says Professor Bain, "the 
house had been a school, and it continued so while he lived." 
In the latter years of his life he was troubled with disease of 
the chest, which began to affect him seriously in April, 1836. 
He gradually became worse, and expired on the 23rd of June. 
Mill's character was in some aspects grand, but scarcely in 
any lovable. His absolute honesty, his unswerving devotion 
to the cause or opinion which he considered right, however 
unpopular it might be, his indomitable energy in overcoming 
apparently insuperable difficulties, his philanthropy — all these 
are beyond praise ; but his narrowness, his impatience, his 
want of tenderness and sympathy for minds differently con- 
stituted from his own — these defects were unfortunately 
equally conspicuous, and should qualify our judgment on his 
merits. 



part H. 

THEIE PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS AND OPINIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 

THE PHYSICAL GROUNDWORK OF THE THEORY — HARTLEY^ 

VIBRATIONS — JAMES MILL AND HARTLEY ON SENSATIONS 

IDEAS AS COPIES OF SENSATIONS. 

The theory of Association of Ideas, now so familiar to us as 
applied to the different practical fields of language, law, morals, 
politics, education, religion, and sociology, was first formulated 
as a philosophical system, and made the serious study of a life- 
time, by Hartley. Obvious enough it seems when stated, and it 
is only when the question of the extent of its application comes 
in, that the widest divergency of opinion is manifested. Some 
sort of belief in it has always been tacitly recognized as the 
ground of prediction in the common affairs of life, and has 
been at the root of most of the proverbial philosophy and folk- 
lore of ages. Nor were more formal, though isolated, admis- 
sions of its validity wanting in the works of pre-Hartleian 
philosophers in different countries. Aristotle and Hobbes had 
noticed the principle (the latter under the name of Mental 






HISTORY OF THE ASSOCIATION THEORY. 25 

Discourse). In France, Condillac (Hartley's contemporary) 
worked out similar results. The name had been invented by 
Locke. 1 One Gay had very briefly, but in a lucid and agree- 
able manner, sketched out his ideas on the subject, and applied 
the doctrine chiefly to moral phenomena, both in a disserta- 
tion prefixed to Edmund Law's translation and edition of 
Archbishop King's ff Origin of Evil/' and (probably) in an 
anonymous " Enquiry into the Origin of the Human Appe- 
tites and Affections " (1747), printed in Dr. Parr's "Meta- 
physical Tracts of the 18th Century " [pp. 48—170] . Edmund 
Law, in his prefatory observations to King's work [pp. lvi, 
lvii], dwells with enthusiasm on "the power of Association 
which was first hinted at by Mr. Locke, but applied to the 
present purpose more directly by the author of the foregoing 
Dissertation" [the Rev. Mr. Gay], "and from him taken up 
and considered in a much more general way by Dr. Hartley, 
who has from thence solved many of the principle appearances 
in Human Nature, the sensitive part of which, since Mr. 
Locke's essay, has been very little cultivated, and is perhaps 
yet to the generality a terra incognita, how interesting soever 
and entertaining such inquiries must be found to be : on which 
account it is much to be lamented that no more thoughtful 
persons are induced to turn their minds that way, since so very 
noble a foundation for improvements has been laid by both 
these excellent writers, especially the last, whose work is, I 
beg leave to say, in the main, notwithstanding all its abstruse- 
ness, well worth studying, and would have been sufficiently 
clear and convincing had he but confined his observations to 
the plain facts and experiments, without ever entering minutely 
into the Physical Cause of such Phenomena." He speaks, 
too, with some impatience of the principle of Association being 

1 Locke's Essay, — Conduct of the Understanding, § 40, 4th ed., 1690. 
See J. S. Mill's note on p. 377 of vol. i. of the Analysis of James Mill. 



26 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

often slighted as vague and confused by later writers, particu- 
larly Dr. Hutcheson, 2 and expresses [p. lvii] his own convic- 
tion that " it will not appear of less extent or influence in the 
Intellectual World than that of Gravity is found to be in the 
Natural," 3 

This theory, then, of the Association of Ideas, propounded 
by Gay, ushered in by Edmund Law with the exuberant 
hopefulness which has always characterized the Columbuses of 
philosophy, elaborated by Hartley, and kept alive by Priestley, 
the elder Darwin, and Brown, was that which subsequently 
attracted the attention of James Mill, who added to it from 
the richer scientific stores then at his disposal, while stripping 
it of certain excrescences not necessary to the vindication and 
establishment of its truth, and solely due to the physical tastes 
of Hartley. 

Let us first find a statement of the doctrine in its very 
simplest terms. So far Hartley and James Mill are perfectly 
at one; we will take the definition given by the latter. " Our 
ideas," he says [Analysis, vol. i. p. 78] , 4 " spring up, or exist, 
in the order in which the sensations existed, of which they are 
copies. This is the general law of the Association of Ideas, 
by which term, let it be remembered, nothing is here meant to 
be expressed but the order of occurrence." 

Next, what was that physical hypothesis with which, to 
Edmund Law's regret, Hartley encumbered his theory, and 
which James Mill, as we shall see, cast aside? 

Hartley, like many another theorist, strained every nerve 
to evolve some grand and comprehensive law which should 

2 Science of Morals, p. 55, sqq. 

3 J. S. Mill uses the same comparison in speaking of the theory. " That 
which the Law of Gravitation is to Astronomy .... the Law of the 
Association of Ideas is to Psychology." Comte and Positivism, p. 53. 

4 Throughout this work the references are to J. S. Mill's edition of 
The Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1869. 



VIBRA TIONS. 27 



interpret all the phenomena. His bias towards simplifica- 
tion was excessive; and the consequence was that his foun- 
dations were not wide enough to support the superstructure. 
Not content with showing how large a variety of our mental 
processes are merely instances of the general law of Associa- 
tion as stated above, and how many of our complex ideas 
are, on analysis, reducible to simple ideas (the copies, in his 
language, of sensations), he endeavoured to prove that the 
primary law itself was nothing but the experience of a phy- 
sical change in first, the nerves, and then the brain, produced 
in the first instance by the impression on the senses of external 
objects. For this purpose he assumed, on certain (chiefly 
pathological and medical) analogies, that, when sensations are 
experienced, vibrations in the infinitesimal particles of the 
medullary substance of the brain are set going by external 
objects ; and surmised that, on the removal of these objects, 
the vibrations survive in the form of miniature vibrations or 
vibratiuncules which represent or cause what, from the sub- 
jective point of view, w r e call ideas. The ideas (or diminu- 
tive vibrations) would necessarily be of the same nature and 
constitution, and have the same arrangement and sequence 
of their elements as the original vibrations (or sensations) 
themselves. 

The vibration theory was suggested, as Hartley tell us, by 
Newton's hints as to the relation between motion and sen- 
sation, just as, on the intellectual side, the association theory 
was suggested by Locke and Gay; and, as a medical man and 
student of physical science, Hartley saw no reason why an 
ingenious combination of the two should not be effected. It 
is easy now to see why such a hypothesis in his time could be 
nothing but the merest guesswork, since, even at the present 
day, its lineal successor, the doctrine of " neural tremors" and 
groupings, under the auspices of such able exponents as G. H. 



28 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

Lewes and Dr. Maudsley, does not advance the Association 
theory much, which is far better left to stand on its own legs 
as the expression of an ultimate psychological law. In his 
system of vibrations Hartley had to assume both the causal 
nexus and the existence of the alleged cause. The theory 
was doubly hypothetical. Granting the existence of vibra- 
tions at all, and, further, their activity to the extent and under 
the conditions postulated by him, there still remains unproved 
their operation in giving birth to sensations and ideas : he at 
most shows the probability of the concomitance of the physical 
and mental conditions in a large number of cases. His vibra- 
tions are like the French chemists' substance X,in being undis- 
covered and unproved, though unlike it in the fact that, even 
if their existence were proved, it could not be shown that they 
caused the phenomena to be accounted for and interpreted. 

Hartle}^, at the outset, anticipates that his readers may see 
little connexion between vibrations and the association of 
ideas, and modestly expresses his fear that he will be able to 
do but little in the way of combining the two theories, "on 
account of the great intricacies, extensiveness, and novelty of 
the subject." [Observations on Man, vol. i. p. 6. 5 ] " How- 
ever/' he says — and in these words he betrays the weak point 
in his attempt — " if these doctrines be found in fact to contain 
the laws of the bodily and mental powers respectively, they 
must be related to each other, since the body and mind are/' 
In the reason thus naively assigned the whole question is 
begged. 

Starting from Newtonian principles, he first lays down that 
the immediate instrument of sensation and motion is to be 
found in the medullary substance of the brain, spinal marrow, 
and nerves; and, furthermore, that the medullary substance of 

5 Our references throughout are to the edition of Hartley's works 
in 3 vols.) by his son [18011. 



VIBRA TIONS. 29 



the brain is the immediate instrument of ideas, so that a 
change in the former works a corresponding* change in the 
latter. But sensations notoriously persist after the removal or 
disappearance of the external phenomena which occasioned 
them. Now, no motion can persist of itself in any space or 
part of a physical body, except a vibratory one. Therefore, he 
argues, these surviving sensations must be the result of vibra- 
tory motions communicated first to the nerves, and then to 
the brain, by sensible objects. Then, as if not quite sure of 
the efficacy of his reasoning, he adds, that if the vibrations 
could be proved independently by physical arguments, the 
persistence of sensation after disappearance of the object 
might be proved from vibrations, instead of vice versa. This 
latter task he then sets himself to do, and assumes (without 
proving) certain probable exciting causes, conditions, and 
media of the vibrations, such, for instance, as a very subtle 
and elastic fluid or aether, which he holds to be " of great 
use in performing sensation, thought, or motion." [Vol. i. 
p. 3:2.] He speaks also of the infinitesimal character of the 
particles of the medullary substance operated upon, and their 
uniformity, continuity, softness, and active powers, as favour- 
ing his hypothesis. Here again he is taking hints from Sir 
Isaac Newton. He also brings forward analogies and illus- 
trations derived from the exercise of his own profession, 6 and 
attempts to show how the phenomena of pleasure and pain, of 
sleep, and of light, are agreeable to his theory, and how 
muscular contractions and motions (automatic, semi-volun- 
tary, and voluntary, according to his division) are all satis- 
torily explained by it. The general conclusion is, that 
vibrations and association mutually support one another. 

6 He has a section (vol. i. pp. 264 — 268) on the Eelation of the Art of 
Physic to, and the improvements which it is capable of receiving from, 
the Yibration Theory, judiciously applied. 



30 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

(C One may expect that vibrations should infer association as 
their effect, and association point to vibrations as its cause." 
Ultimately, however, he leaves us somewhat in the dark as to 
which is to be held the cause of the other, and seems to con- 
tent himself with placing the two laws in juxtaposition, 
expounding* their correspondence and parallelism, and drawing' 
the inference that the agreement of the doctrines, "both with 
each other and with so great a variety of the phenomena of 
the body and mind, may be reckoned a strong argument of 
their truth/' [Vol. i. p. 11.4.] He even appears to give up 
the idea of a definite causal relation in the assertion that u as 
in physics, we may make the quantity of the matter the 
exponent of the gravity, or the gravity the exponent of it," 
so, in inquiries into the human mind, "if that species of 
motion which we term vibrations can be shown by probable 
arguments to attend upon all sensations, ideas, and motions, 
and to be proportioned to them, then we are at liberty either 
to make vibrations the exponent of sensations, ideas, and 
motions, or these the exponents of vibrations, as best suits the 
inquiry, however impossible it may be to discover in what 
way vibrations cause, or are connected with, sensations or 
ideas. " [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 32.] And he then 
abandons himself for a moment to a wild search for a cause 
behind the cause, for a hypothetical substance on which to rest 
a hypothetical kind of motion, and suggests an infinitesimal 
elementary one, intermediate between the soul and the body. 
As his work proceeds, however, we find him merely placing 
side by side with each law of Association successively enun- 
ciated the corresponding law of the vibration theory, by sub- 
stituting vibration for sensation, vibratiuncules for simple ideas 
of sensation (that is, vestiges or images of sensations left behind 
in the brain), and complex miniature vibrations (compounded 
of simple miniature vibrations running into one another) for 



THE ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 31 



1. If any 


r Sensation A. 


2 - 


Idea B. 


3. 


or Muscular 
Motion C. 



Sensation D. 




d, the simple 
idea belong- 




it will at last, 


ing to D. 


Idea E. 


> when occur- , 
ring alone, 


The very idea 




E. 


Muscular 


excite 


The very 


Motion F. 




Muscular 






Motion F. 



complex (or the more intellectual) ideas, compounded of simple 
ideas of sensation running into one another. These laws of 
the association, both of vibrations (on the physical or external 
side), and of sensations and ideas (on the subjective or psy- 
chical side), Hartley (as stated above) believed to apply also 
to the association of muscular contractions. Consequently, 
he expresses his vibration-association theory in its complete 
shape and threefold application in the following formula or 
theorem : — ■ 



be associated 

for a suffi- 
cient number 
of times with 
any other 



By a comparison of the first branch of this law with the 
second, it will be seen to express the obvious fact that the 
recurrence of one of two originally associated sensations does 
not guarantee the recurrence of the other sensation itself, 
because such a result depends on the disposition of external 
phenomena, independent of subjective conditions, but only 
of the ideas corresponding to it : that is, in any case of asso- 
ciation, as Mills puts it, the antecedent may be either a sen- 
sation or an idea, but the consequent must be always an idea. 
lAnal. i. 81.] 

The elements or materials of all our mental states, according 
to both Hartley and James Mill, may be represented by the 
following scale or psychological spectrum : — 

1. Sensations (impressed by external objects, in most cases, 

though not in all). 

2. Ideas of Sensations, or Simple Ideas (Ideas surviving 

Sensations after the objects have been removed, or 
the Ideas most nearly allied to, and indistinguishable 
from, Sensations). 



32 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

3. Complex Ideas (the more purely intellectual Ideas, com- 
pounded of the above). 
It is natural, therefore, that both philosophers should com- 
mence with some account of the prime data, Sensations, of 
which they conceive all ideas to be either copies, or com- 
binations (according to the laws of association) of such 
copies, and into which, by analysis, they may ultimately be 
resolved. 

James Mill does not originate any startling physical theory 
of the senses : this, indeed, was not his object. He merely 
wished the student to accustom himself to reflect on the 
different classes of simple sensations, and learn to discriminate 
them not only from one another, but from all other feelings 
or states of mind with which, from their very familiarity, they 
were in danger of being confused. This was, in his opinion, 
a necessary step by way of preparing the ground for an 
examination of cc the more mysterious phenomena." He 
accordingly gives a short account of the five senses of Smell, 
Taste, Hearing, Touch, and Sight, to which he adds two fresh 
classes of sensations, viz., those which accompany the muscular 
actions of the body, and those which have their seat in the 
alimentary canal, or the feelings associated with digestion. 

In discussing each of these in order, Mill points out that 
three conditions are requisite to sensation, — first, its organ, 
next, the actual feeling itself, and, lastly, the antecedent of 
sensation, or the external object to which it is referred as effect 
to cause, "With regard to the muscular sensibilities, he 
expresses his surprise at the extent to which this part of our 
consciousness had, up to his day, been neglected by all philoso- 
phical inquirers in this country except Hartley, Erasmus 
Darwin, and Brown (all of them, it is noticeable, physicians). 
He explains this neglect on the ground that they are feelings 
in the main leading up to more interesting states of mind, to 



THE CLASSES OF SENSATIONS. 33 

which the attention is immediately called off, to the swallowing" 
up of any interest in the former which might otherwise have 
heen taken. In discussing the sensations of the alimentary 
canal, Mill justly (and somewhat dolefully) observes that 
" when they become acutely painful they arc precise objects of 
attention to everybody," though, in their ordinary form, they 
too, as being merely productive of, or preliminary to, more 
interesting sensations, are lost sight of and forgotten as soon 
as the latter supervene. 7 Hartley's description of the classes 
of sensations [Observ. on Man, vol. i. pp. 115 — 26S], as 
coming from a physician, is fuller and more elaborate; but, 
notwithstanding that it is replete with valuable and striking 
suggestions, its scope and aim is far more indefinite, aud it 
forms a far less coherent and integral part of the general 
theory, than that given by Mill. In speaking of the various 
senses and sensations, he seems to have no very determinate 
object before him. Mill's purpose, on the contrary, was very 
plain and intelligible. His theory being that ideas are 
copies, or combinations of copies, of sensations, he begins w 7 ith 
sensations, as being the primary element to which all intel- 
lectual operations are reducible, and the most simple and 
primitive of all our natural states, no less properly than Euclid 
begins with his definitions, and then proceeds to his postu- 
lates, axioms, and theorems. And he dwelt on them just long 
enough for purposes of definition, and no longer. Hartley, on 
the other hand, though he began with pensation, could not 
confine himself within proper limits. 

In his long second chapter on " the application of the doc- 

7 Besides these, Mill notices the Sensations of Disorganization, or cf 
the approach thereto in any part of the body (such as painful cuts, wounds, 
&c, and similar feelings) though here there is neither a specific organ nor 
external object of the sensation. Some of his remarks throw light on 
Kant's dictum that "pain is the sense of that which destroys life." 

D 



34 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



trines of vibration and association to each of the sensations and 
motions in particular/' Hartley seems to have had at least three 
objects indistinctly before him at various times : — (1) a division 
and classification of the senses (though he brings forward no 
very satisfactory fundament um divisionis, and often puts 
species on the same level as genera); (2) to show that the vibra- 
tions accompanying the special sensations propagated diminutive 
vibrations representing the simple ideas of those sensations; 
and (3) to explain how the special sensations contribute to 
form our intellectual pleasures and pains " in the way of 
association ;" which latter qualification exhibits a certain con- 
fusion in his mind, since the inquiry into the tones of mind 
produced by sensations is properly a physical, almost a medical, 
inquiry, and has nothing to do with Association, which pro- 
fesses to interpret the sequences of ideas as dependent upon, 
or related to, the sequences of sensuous impressions. 8 On the' 
whole, then, we may take Mill's classification of the senses 
and sensations to be quite sufficient as a necessary introduc- 
tion to the theory of association ; and the many interesting 
observations scattered up and down the corresponding part of 
Hartley's work need not detain us at present. 

Ideas are, as we have seen (when simple), copies, or (when 
complex) combinations of copies, of sensations. We have 
noticed Mill's succinct account of sensations, the originals : 
let us now see what he has to tell us, by way of definition and 
explanation, about the copies, images, or ideas, the other 
material of consciousness. 

Like Hartley, Mill first of all examines the idea in its simplest 
form : and, to both philosophers, the idea in its simplest form 

8 James Mill falls occasionally into the same mistake, as, for instance, 
where he talks of dismal ideas being associated with (instead of being, as 
they are, produced, through direct physical agency, by) intestinal sensa- 
tions of discomfort [Anal. vol. i. pp. 101, 102]. 



SIMPLE IDEAS. 35 



is that vestige or trace of a sensation which remains in the 
mind after the external phenomenon which occasioned the sen- 
sation has been removed. Hartley, indeed, at times seems to 
be so taken up with this aspect of the simple idea that he 
apparently disregards the other and far more important points 
of view from which it may be looked at. He confuses, for 
instance, the images before the retina' of the eye immediately 
after the disappearance of a bright-coloured object, with the 
thought of that object at any time after its disappearance — a 
purely physical with a purely intellectual state or operation. 
And even Mill does not distinguish quite sharply enough 
between the mere persistence of a sensuous impression in 
the mind immediately after the vanishing of the external 
object, and the reproduction or recollection by the mind of 
such an impression long afterwards. "When our sensations 
cease, by the absence of their objects, something remains. 
This something is a feeling which, though distinguishable 
from the sensation itself, is yet more like it than anything 
else, and therefore may not inaptly be called a copy, trace, 
or representation of the sensation/'' To this latter class of 
feelings — to every feeling, that is, other than a sensation in 
immediate relation to its exciting object — Mill gives the 
generic name, Ideas, as opposed to sensations in the above 
sense ; and as opposed to Sensation in its other sense of the 
mental process, of which each specific sensation is an example, 
he proposes with some hesitation a term, which has since been 
taken up by Dr. Maudsley and others, Ideation. In this way 
we may be said to have Ideas of Sight, Ideas of Hearing, 
Ideas of Touch, of Smell, of Muscular Contraction, of Dis- 
organization, &c. In each of these classes, we experience 
tl something which remains with us after the sensation" [of 
Sight, Hearing, Touch, &c, as the case maybe] "is gone, and 
which, in the train of thought, we can use as its repre- 

D 'Z 



36 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

sentative." The sound of thunder, for example, the sensation, 
is the primary state of consciousness ; the thought of it, when 
it is gone, is the secondary state of consciousness. 

Music, when soft voices die, 
Vibrates in the memory : 
Yiolets when they die and sicken, 
Live still in the sense they quicken. 

Here again we have cases of the secondary state of con- 
sciousness, as Mill calls it. 

Up to this point the idea has been regarded solely in the 
light of a remnant of sensation, and ideation as a sort of dis- 
solving view, in which the idea represents the fading outline 
of the figures which were just now distinct and vivid. But 
Mill soon begins to introduce the discriminative or retentive' 
powers of the mind, though he expresses their operations in 
his own peculiar language. On tasting a wine, or observing 
a colour, we often have at the same time a secondary con- 
sciousness of other sensations of the same class as, but speci- 
fically unlike, the sensations of which we then have a primary 
consciousness; we distinguish the two feelings in a train 
of thought ; and we say that the former sensations of which we 
have equivalents or images in our minds differ from those of 
which we have a present experience. Here we see the original 
conception of an idea as a mere remnant of sensation, a sort 
of weaker impression on the senses, considerably enlarged. 
And we shall notice, in the next two chapters, still further 
amplifications, when Mill comes to divide the ideas into classes 
corresponding in the main with those of Hartley. 






37 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ELEMENTARY POSTULATES AND FIRST PROPOSITIONS OF THE 
THEORY OF ASSOCIATION, AS LAID DOWN BY HARTLEY AND 
JAMES MILL. 

After noticing the persistence of sensations (notably visible 
and audible sensations) in the sensorium, fancy, or mind — 
which he takes for his purpose to be equivalent expressions — 
after their exciting causes have been removed, and then ap- 
parently feeling conscious that this proposition does not carry 
us very far, since it merely represents a well-known physical 
law, Hartley in his eighth Proposition (vol. i. p. 56) begins to 
introduce us to the Association theory proper, and lays down 
that te sensations, by being often repeated, leave certain Types 
or Images of themselves which may be called Simple Ideas of 
Sensation " [of Sensation, because, as Mill too says, more like 
sensations than anything else; and simple, as contrasted with 
complex ideas, to be noticed presently]. He compares this 
proposition with the foregoing one [Prop. III.], and points 
out that, whereas, according to the latter law, the single im- 
pression produces " a perceptible effect, trace or vestige " for a 
short time, the repetition, in the former case, produces a more 
permanent effect, and generates an idea " which shall recur 
occasionally at long distances of time from the impression of 
the corresponding sensation." So, too, Mill remarks the con- 
stant interchange of sensations and ideas in our mental 
experience, sensations suggesting ideas ; and those ideas sug- 



3$ HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

gesting still further ideas more and more remotely connected 
with the sensation which set the train of thought in motion, 
and more and more nearly allied to sensations long* past, till 
the sequence of ideas is broken in upon by some sensation 
impressed by an external cause independent of us, and a fresh 
train is constituted. Then do our ideas follow one another at 
hazard, or according to law ? The latter assuredly ; and the 
law of their succession is determined by the order of suc- 
cession or the order of co-existence of the corresponding sensa- 
tions. Hartley and Mill agree that there are two orders of 
sensations — the successive order, or the order which answers 
usually, but not always, to a sequence in time of their objects ; 
and the synchronous order, or the order which answers to the 
relation of the corresponding objects to one another in space. 
When the sensations have been synchronous, the ideas of these 
sensations are synchronous; and when the sensations have 
been successive, the ideas of those sensations spring up suc- 
cessively, though not necessarily, of course, in exactly the 
same order of succession. From a stone, for example, several 
sensations are simultaneously derived — those of hardness, 
weight, roundness, colour, size, &c. When, therefore, the 
idea of any one of those sensations springs up in the mind 
afterwards, the ideas of all the others spring, up, says Mill, 
simultaneously with it. 1 The sensation of hearing the thunder, 
on the contrary, follows the sensation of seeing the lightning- 
flash : when the idea, therefore, of one of these is recalled, the 
idea of the other follows in succession, and not simultaneously. 
The latter branch of the law is also most aptly exemplified by 
the case of committing passages to memory, where each word in 
succession suggests the following word. Of course a far 

1 This hypothesis is obviously crude and ill-founded, as Professor Bain 
points out [Analysis, vol. i. p. 79, note], since the same individual 
sensation has generally a place in many different groupings or clusters. 



ORDERS OF SENSATIONS AND IDEAS. 39 

greater number of our sensations, and therefore also of our 
ideas, occur in the successive than in the synchronous order. 
Also nearly all the sensations occurring 1 either simultaneously 
or successively occur very frequently in their respective orders, 
and the frequent repetition tends to rivet more firmly the 
corresponding sequences and associations of the ideas. 

The above doctrines are expressed by Hartley in a somewhat 
different way, but to the same effect, in two of the propositions 
into which he delights to pack up his philosophy, namely, 
(]) the proposition, already noticed, that sensations, by being 
often repeated, leave types or images of themselves, called 
Simple Ideas of Sensation : this would include Mill's per- 
petuation of the synchronous order of sensations in subsequent 
ideation, e. g. in the case of the simultaneous sensations excited 
by a rose through its different sensible qualities : (:2) any 
sensations, A, B, C. &c, by being associated w T ith one another 
a sufficient number of times, get such a power over the cor- 
responding ideas, a, b, c, &c, that any one sensation, A, when 
impressed alone, shall be able to excite in the mind, b, c, &c, 
the ideas of the rest. [Prop. X., vol. i., p. 65], This asso- 
ciation would include both the case of simultaneity and that 
of succession. Hartley gives us the physical counterpart 
of the latter of these two laws as follows : Any vibrations, 
A, B, C, &c, by being associated together often enough, get 
such a power over a, b, c, &c, the corresponding miniature 
vibrations, that any one vibration, A, when impressed alone, 
shall be able to excite b, c, &c, the miniatures of the rest. 
[Prop. XI.]. The former he translates into vibration lan- 
guage thus : Sensory vibrations, by being often repeated, beget 
in the medullary substance of the brain a disposition to 
diminutive vibrations, or vibratiuncules. 

Having explained that sensations associated often enough 
tend to generate similarly associated ideas, Mill goes on to 



4 o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

show that there are degrees of strength in the associative link 
itself, as there are degrees of clearness in the associated ideas. 
The symptoms or criteria of the relative strength of such 
links are, in the main, their relative permanence, and the 
relative certainty and facility with which they are formed. 
This may be seen by comparing the bond of association be- 
tween names and ideas in a well-known language, science or 
art, on the one hand, and an imperfectly known one on the 
other. The causes of strength of association of ideas are two : 
the vividness of the associated sensations, and the frequency 
of their association. This Hartley expresses as usual in terms 
of vibrations. [Vol. i., pp. 30, 31]. 

That vividness and frequency are two completely distinct 
causes of strong and intimate associations is shown by the 
fact that a single instance of a connexion of a highly 
pleasurable or painful sensation with one which would other- 
wise have been indifferent, will often be sufficient to forge an 
almost indissoluble link between the latter sensation, when 
recurring, or the idea of it, when subsequently springing up 
in the mind, and the idea of the pleasurable or painful sensa- 
tion. The sight of a surgical operator, or of a place connected 
with a delightful meeting, will respectively suggest painful 
and pleasurable ideas long afterwards to the patient and to 
the friend, although only once coupled with the sensations 
corresponding to those ideas. So, too, recently-associated 
sensations will, as compared with those associated at more 
distant dates, generate a strong association between the 
corresponding ideas, or between one of the sensations and 
the idea of the other, by reason of the vividness and pro- 
minence in the memory of the original sensations, irrespective 
of frequency. Conversely, a word frequently associated with 
a sensation, or the sight of a particular class of citizen 
frequently associated with the sight of a particular kind of 






CAUSES OF STRONG ASSOCIATIONS. 41 

dress, will create an equally strong association between the 
corresponding ideas, though any one of the associations of the 
original sensations, taken by itself, would have left no impress 
on the mind at all. 

The next primary law of the association theory is a very 
important one. It is that, when several simple ideas are 
frequently united together in the mind, they gradually merge 
into a complex whole, the several parts of which are practically 
indistinguishable, only distinguishable, that is, by a conscious 
effort of analysis : or, as Hartley puts it shortly, simple ideas 
will run into a complex idea by means of association, in 
which case, according to the vibration hypothesis, " we are to 
suppose " that simple miniature vibrations run into a complex 
miniature vibration. Mill compares the analogous physical 
effect of a rapidly revolving wheel, on seven parts of which 
the seven prismatic colours are painted, and which appears to 
a spectator white ; and Hartley characteristically instances 
the apparently simple flavour of a medicine where the tastes 
of the several ingredients cannot be distinguished. Such an 
apparently simple id„a as that of gold is in reality a very 
complex idea, — one which the ideas (themselves not simple in 
every case), of hardness, colour, extension, weight, have by 
frequent union coalesced to form. The complexity of such 
abstract ideas as those of Humanity, Poetry, or Civilization, 
is more obvious. This law may be regarded as a case o£ the 
law of the generation of synchronous ideas by similarly 
sj r nchronous sensations. Hartley draws attention to this, 
and, in his semi-mathematical language, puts the generalization 
thus : — A + B + C + D (sensations) often occurring together 

[or — though this does not seem so certain — A equally often 
occurring with B, C, or D alone, or with pairs of B -f- C, B -f 
D, C + D alone] generate the synchronous simple ideas a + b 

-fc + d, and these synchronous simple ideas, by their repeated 



42 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

union, coalesce into a cluster or complex idea, abed. He 
regards the merging" of the ideas of the letters of the alphabet 
into the ideas of syllables, and the ideas of syllables into the 
ideas of words, — in fact the whole process of learning a 
language, — as a conspicuous instance of this law ; and says 
that, similarly, the most abstract ideas are capable, with per- 
severance, o£ being analyzed into such simple ideas as are but 
copies or images of sensations; since, as simple ideas run into 
complex ones, so complex run into decomplex ideas; but the 
complex ideas which go to compose a decomplex idea adhere 
together less closely than the simple ideas which go to form a 
complex idea, just as letters adhere together more closely to form 
a syllable by association than syllables do to form a word, and 
these latter again than words to form a sentence. It is to be 
noticed that when a complex idea is made up of several simple 
ideas, one of which is a visible idea, the visible idea, being the 
most glaring, so to speak, will generally serve as a symbol to 
suggest and connect the rest, just as the first letter of a word, 
or the first word of a sentence, will often call up the entire 
word or the entire sentence. 

In connexion with this part of the theory, Mill just mentions 
the principle (which will occupy our attention hereafter) of 
indissoluble association. Two or more simple ideas maybe so 
constantly and invariably conjoined that they form what 
may, from one point of view, be called a complex idea, with- 
out a special name, the parts of which, though specially 
named, it is impossible to disconnect, — such pairs of simple 
ideas, for instance, as colour and extension, solidity and figure, 
two straight lines and unterminated space. The sensations of 
colour and figure are so firmly associated with the sensations 
from which we infer distance, solidity, &c, that we even 
imagine that we see distance and solidity, though in fact we 
see only the former, and the rest is inference of a somewhat 



COMPLEX IDEAS. 43 

complicated character. We here have an instance of a sen- 
sation and an idea being so closely and repeatedly united that 
they merge into a whole which appears to be a simple 
sensation. 

Just as simple ideas thus associated cannot be disjoined, so 
neither of them can be conjoined by any effort of mind with 
the opposite of the other. Here we have the law of the in- 
conceivability of the opposite, about which Mr. Herbert 
Spencer's views have of late given rise to so much contro- 
versy. 

Mill farther remarks that another instance of the law now 
under consideration is the case (already mentioned) of ante- 
cedent sensations or ideas leading up so rapidly to a train of 
more interesting consequent ideas, that a complex idea results 
in which the supervening ideas form the dominant element, 
and the antecedent sensations or ideas are almost entirely 
lost. 

The main principles of association, as enounced by Mill, are 
compared by him to those which Hume put forward. The 
two theories, though expressed differently and worked out 
from a somewhat different starting-point, are found to be in 
substance much the same. Hume considers the elementary 
principles, according to which our ideas are associated, to be 
Contiguity in Time and in Place, Causation, and Resemblance. 
Causation, however, even according to Hume hinYself, and 
certainly according to Mill, is only a particular case of Con- 
tiguity in Time; and Contrast, which Hume mentions as 
another possible principle, he himself admits to be derivative, 
as being a compound case of Resemblance and Causation. 
James Mill, indeed, thinks this analysis unsatisfactory, and 
prefers to call Contrast either a case of Resemblance (as when 
a dwarf suggests a giant, the two resembling one another in 
the fact of both departing from a common standard), or a 



44 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

combined case of Vividness and Frequency, as when the 
sensation or idea of pain suggests the idea of relief from pain, 
or of pleasure, because the sensation of pain has often been 
followed by the sensation accompanying relief from pain, and 
also, whenever it has been so followed, the associative link 
has generally been of a vivid and forcible character. There 
remains then Contiguity in Place and in Time, together with 
Resemblance. The two former correspond to Mill's syn- 
chronous and successive orders; and we have seen that the 
simultaneity or sequence of our ideas depends on the simul- 
taneity or sequence of our sensations. As to Resemblance, 
Mill, in a somewhat hasty generalization, infers that it is 
merely a case of the law of Frequency, because when we 
perceive an object by our senses we generally perceive other 
objects of the same class together with it. This is a very 
crude and unphilosophical explanation. We perceive, together 
with any given object, quite as many objects of different 
classes, at any given moment, as objects of the class to which 
it belongs, and, therefore, might be expected to have formed 
quite enough counter-associations to dispel the association 
which is alleged to be created in this manner. 

Reduced then to their simplest terms, Mill's p7*imary laws 
of Association come to this. I. Whenever a strong association 
is formed between two or more sensations, the recurrence of 
any one of these sensations, or of the idea of any one of these 
sensations, will suggest the ideas of the remaining sensations 
either simultaneously or successively, according as the sensa- 
tions, of which the suggesting sensation was one, were con- 
nected together in a synchronous or successive order. II. The 
strength of the association is caused by either (1) the frequency 
of the association, or (2) the vividness of the sensations asso- 
ciated, or one of them, or (3) a combination of both. III. After 
simple ideas have occurred together a great many times 



MILL'S PRIMA R Y LA WS OF A SSOCIA TION. 45 

simultaneously, or even successively, in an order corresponding 1 
to that of the associated sensations, they are apt to coalese into 
a single complex idea, which, from the close adherence and 
interfusion of the parts composing it, will appear tohe a simple 
indecomposable idea ; and when the association has been con- 
stant and invariable, those parts or elements will in fact, as 
well as appearance, be inseparable by any effort of imagination. 
IY. Complex ideas thus formed ma} r , by a similar process, 
merge into decomplex ideas ; and in this way are formed the 
most abstract ideas which the human mind can frame. 

Thus, having, with Hartley's guidance, determined the 
constitution and construction of the materials of thought, viz. 
Sensations, Simple Ideas, Complex Ideas, and Trains of Ideas, 
Mill has paved the way for the consideration of the principal 
operations of the human mind in making use of these mate- 
rials. And first he examines the process by which (through 
the formation of links of association between ideas and sensible 
symbols) thought is communicated from mind to mind. This 
subject demands a chapter to itself. 



46 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS — LANGUAGE NAMING. 

Hartley attaches considerable importance to the process of 
associating impressions, made by written words and uttered 
sounds on the senses of sight and hearing respectively, with 
the corresponding ideas ; and James Mill (always more pre- 
cise and methodical than his predecessor) gives the theory of 
Naming a definite and a considerable place in his system. In 
all the more intricate and complicated states of human con- 
sciousness, to which, after the explanation of the simple and 
familiar states, we are now about to proceed, "something of 
the process of Naming is involved." This artifice, therefore, 
craves immediate attention. 

In order to communicate the trains of our thoughts to 
others, as well as to record for our benefit and use our own 
past trains in the order in which the ideas composing them 
actually occurred, it was found absolutely necessary to employ 
sensible signs or marks. Mind cannot work upon mind 
directly. One person can only devise and use visible or audible 
signs, which shall impress themselves on the senses of another 
person, and, by means of predetermined associations, call up 
in his mind ideas in a certain order, and at the same time 
signify to him that those ideas are passing, or did at some 
previous time pass, in his (the first person's) mind. Nor can 
we at will recall any set of ideas we please, still less in the 
order in which on some past occasion they occurred to us. If 






VISIBLE AND A UDIBLE MARKS OF IDEAS. 4; 

we wish to recall an idea, that idea must be present to our 
minds in the very act of willing to recall it ; and, of course, 
we cannot will to will to recall an idea. AYe have no power 
over the occasions of our ideas. But by our power over the 
occasions of our sensations, that is, natural objects, we can 
devise such an order of them as must necessarily, at any time 
we wish, raise up a corresponding 1 order of sensible impres- 
sions. By making, therefore, certain sensible impressions 
stand for certain ideas, we can ensure the possibility of raising 
up in our minds at any future time both the connexion 
and the order of the ideas which have formed part of any of 
our past trains of thought. 

For the first of the above-mentioned purposes of language, 
namely, the immediate communication of sensations or ideas 
to others, audible signs (owing to their rapidity and variety, 
and the flexibility of the human voice) are preferable to visible 
signs, or the language of action and pantomime, which savage 
tribes use to a considerable extent, and which, of course, is 
useless in the dark. For the latter purpose, the permanent 
recording of thought, the converse is the case : visible marks 
are preferable to audible, durable signs to evanescent. Man- 
kind first of all invented, by way of visible marks, picture- 
writing or hieroglyphics, the association here being a direct 
one between a portrait-representation and the seusible object, 
the idea of which is intended to be presented to the mind. 
Gradually the hieroglyphics became less directly pictorial, and 
more technical ; and began to depend more on the various 
combinations of certain fixed types or picture-symbols, than 
on the successive imitations in each case of separate sensible 
objects ; till, finally, men arrived at a new method of pre- 
determining the associations requisite for the recording of 
thought, that, namely, whereby different arrangements of a 
few letters (which stand for certain simple sounds or motions 



48 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

of the vocal organs preparatory to the emission of sound), are 
associated with, the various audible sounds which constitute 
the evanescent signs by which ideas and their order are com- 
municated to others. Thus the permanent signs have fixed 
laws of association with the audible, and the audible again 
with the ideas which they are intended to convey. The 
former, therefore, are secondary marks of the ideas, the latter 
are immediate and primary. 

It was of the greatest importance to man, in the first 
instance, to acquire the means of communicating to others the 
sensations affecting him, in order to secure the co-operation 
and assistance of his fellow-men in coping with the forces of 
nature. He, therefore, first devised audible signs of these 
sensations, such as hot, cold, black, white, pain, pleasure, sweet, 
bitter, &c. It next became advisable, if only for purposes of 
economy, instead of repeating on each occasion the marks of the 
various separate sensations simultaneously affecting him in the 
perception of a sensible object, to invent sounds which should 
symbolize the entire cluster of sensations. Hence the names 
of External Objects, (the sun, the sky, &c.,) or Clusters of Sen- 
sations, or, in the language of later philosophy, " permanent 
possibilities " of clusters of sensations. Of these clusters some 
included a greater, some a less, number of sensations. Men 
advanced, no doubt, gradually from the latter to the former. 
It was then further found necessary to make these marks of 
sensations on the one hand, and of clusters of sensations on 
the other, stand for classes of sensations, and classes of 
clusters of sensations. Mill puts this again on the ground of 
economy, though, as we shall see, this was not the only motive 
which prompted the invention of class-names. 

In the next place, marks for Ideas were required. Ideas, 
as we have seen, are either Simple or Complex. And, for 
purposes of Naming, the Complex Ideas are further divisible 






MARKS OF COMPLEX IDEAS. 49 

into those as to which the mind has not exerted itself to 
iorm the combination, but the cluster of ideas has been copied 
directly from a cluster of sensations found ready made, so to 
speak, in the natural world ; such ideas, that is, as those of 
external objects, rose, house, river, &c. ; and, secondly, those 
ideas in respect of which the mind has exercised its active 
powers in putting* together arbitrarily various copies of sen- 
sations, and • has itself constructed the idea of a cluster of 
sensations, which cluster does not answer to any object in fact 
existing in the order of physical phenomena ; such ideas, for 
instance, as centaur, mermaid, sea of glass, snark, &c, or 
again language, piety, nation, &c. The former of these may 
be called Sensible Complex Ideas, or copies of clusters of sen- 
sations, the latter Mental Complex Ideas (answering to 
Locke's Mixed Modes), or clusters of copies of sensations. 
The names of the Mental Complex Ideas as well as those 
of Simple Ideas and those of Sensible Complex Ideas stand 
for classes, as well as individuals, in order to be as ex- 
tensively applicable as possible, and to economize the use 
of marks. But in the two latter cases, the name (according 
to Mill, though this seems decidedly doubtful) stands both 
for the sensation, and the idea of the sensation, for the 
cluster of sensations, and the idea of the cluster of sensa- 
tions ; whereas, in the case of Mental Complex Ideas, the name 
of course only stands for the idea, since there is in the order 
of nature no cluster of sensations corresponding to the idea. 
However, in escaping one sort of ambiguit}^ (whether real or 
not), we are met by another; for, since the idea of the cluster 
is formed arbitrarily, each man frames his own idea of the 
cluster, and therefore cannot be sure when using the name 
corresponding to it that he is communicating to another the 
idea which he himself possesses, since there is no actual cluster 
of sensations experienced, or capable of being experienced, to 



50 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

which reference may be made as a standard. One man's idea 
of religion or of patriotism is not another man's idea. Half 
the debates and controversies, political, religious, and philo- 
sophical, which have occupied the attention of the world, 
divided a house against itself, distracted humanity, and often 
culminated in bloodshed and war, have arisen in large measure 
from, the impossibility of one man conveying to another by 
means of names the exact complex idea in possession of his 
own mind. 

As soon as a name had been invented to stand for all the 
individuals of a class, it was found that, in the desire for 
economy, the name had been made to express too much. Men 
wished to distinguish between varieties of a class, and to 
signify sub-classes by signs. For this purpose adjectives were 
invented. This device, besides sufficiently effecting the ends 
of economy, had this further advantage, that cross-divisions 
were rendered possible, as well as (with the assistance of the 
copula) predication, which is a distinct means, or rather 
symbolizes a distinct means, of adding to the sum of our 
knowledge. (This latter feature in the use of adjectives Mill 
does not seem to properly appreciate.) Were names always to 
be invented for the smaller parcels into which the main genera 
are broken up, a language would become too copious for 
serviceable use ; the appending of adjectives, however, to the 
names of the classes, when occasion demands, serves the same 
purpose, while the adjective is available for breaking up, not 
one class only, but several, into appropriate sub-classes. If 
substantives, consequently, are marks, adjectives are marks 
upon marks, as Mill says. Verbs are similar marks upon 
marks, and are essentially adjectives, but "receive. a particular 
form, in order to render them at the same time subservient to 
oilier purposes.'" Mill's analysis of the moods and tenses of 
verbs corresponds with his analysis of the nature and use of 






CLASS NAMES. 51 

adjectives, and exhibits the same incompleteness. He con- 
ceives the verb to be merely a name qualifying its subject, 
carving a sub-class out of the class represented by the name 
of that subject, and stating that the particular phenomenon 
adverted to belongs to that sub-class. He ignores the fact 
that a proposition with a verb in it does more than merely 
name; it involves a predication or affirmation, and is designed 
to convey information from one person to another as to the 
occurrence or order of sequence of certain sensations in the 
mind of the person communicating the information, dependent 
upon the occurrence or order of sequence of certain natural 
phenomena. If I inform another that the sun rose at 5 a.m. 
yesterday, I do not merely carve out of the class of rising 
suns a sub-class of suns rising at 5 a.m., and name yesterday's 
sun as belonging to that sub-class. I convey to him infor^ 
mation as to the sequence of my sensations in a particular 
order and manner. And, similarly, if I say that the rose 
which I saw yesterday was a yellow one. To subdivide great 
classes into smaller ones, and save labour and multiplication 
of names, is not, as Mill seems to think, the sole or most 
important object either of verb-framing or adjective-framing; 
nor are verbs merely adjectives so fashioned as to imply (i a 
threefold distinction of agents, with a twofold distinction of 
their number, a threefold distinction of the manner of the 
action, and a threefold distinction of its time." 

Besides the device of special marks to call attention to some 
one prominent sensation in the midst of a cluster or bundle of 
sensations, or to denote that a particular sensation or sequence 
of sensations was experienced along wich the cluster of all 
those sensations usually comprised in its appropriate class- 
name — the provinces of adjectives and ordinary verbs respec- 
tively — a symbol has been invented by means of which, when 
coupled with a name denoting a sensation, or a cluster of 

E 2 



52 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

sensations, we signify the fact that the sensation, or cluster 
of sensations so denoted, was at some past time in fact 
experienced by some sentient being — or is now being so 
experienced, or might then have been, or may now, or at any 
future time, be experienced by any sentient being bringing 
himself within the range of possibility of being affected by 
them. This is the verb denoting Existence, the Verb Sub- 
stantive as it is called. When we say that a thing exists, or 
is, we mean that we may have sensations from it. This mark 
is, therefore, the most comprehensive and generical of all the 
secondary marks that have been invented. 

But there is an unfortunate peculiarity attending the named 
signifying Existence in most languages, namely, that this 
same verb is also used for the copula in predication. Predi- 
cation, according to Mill, serves two purposes; first, to mark 
the order of the ideas in a train of thought which we wish to 
communicate or record — (it will readily be seen that this 
account is insufficient ; we wish the order to be believed in as 
having corresponded to fact) ; — secondly, to signify that a 
certain name (the predicate) is the mark of the same idea of 
which another name (the subject) is also the mark — (here 
too, the essential element of information as to matter of fact 
is omitted). A name merely brings an idea of a sensation, 
or of a cluster of sensations, before the mind; a predication 
denotes an order of sensations and ideas, and, supplementing 
Mill, we may say, that it conveys information and contains 
an assertion; it represents, in J. S. Mill's words, "some co- 
existence, or succession of phenomena experienced, or sup- 
posed capable of being experienced/' [Anal. vol. i. p. 162. 
Editor's note.] Now, whenever we predicate, we employ the 
word " is;" and we predicate quite as often of sensations 
merely supposed, for the moment, capable of being expe- 
rienced, as of sensations actually experienced, or believed 






THE FALLACY OF THE COPULA. 53 

capable of being experienced. Yet, in the former case, where 
the subject of the predication does not, in fact, exist, nor ever 
has existed, the copula " is/' from its association in other 
connexions with the idea of existence, induces the habit of 
belief in the existence, in reruni nalurd, of what is in fact, 
a nonentity. In this way endless confusion of thought has 
arisen. James Mill points this out very elaborately, and was, 
indeed, the first to do so in any detail. Still further evi- 
dences have, since his day, been forthcoming from the Posi- 
tivists and others, to show the monstrous hypotheses, theories, 
and even systems, of philosophy for which this terrible little 
word is responsible. The Fallacy of the Copula was at the 
bottom of most of the false views of the ancient Greek, espe- 
cially the Platonic, philosophy. It has induced the personi- 
fication, even the deification of essences, qualities, attributes, 
&c. It has been the great king-maker of the metaphysical 
world : and from it alone such conceptions as Time, Space, 
Chance, Fate, ^Nature, hold their ontologieal dominion. 

Mill's further remarks on predication by means of Genus, 
Species, Differentia, Proprium, Accidens, contain nothing 
new or remarkable. His account, however, of the different 
kinds of trains of thought, which are represented by predi- 
cation, deserves notice. In communicating or recording we 
have occasion to mark either (1) the order of sensations expe- 
rienced by us at any time, or (2) the order of ideas in a train 
of thought which has passed through our minds. In the 
former case the order which we desire to communicate or 
record, may either be the order of succession in time, or of 
position in space. In the latter, the ideas, the sequence of 
which we wish to represent by predication, are generally 
related to one another, either as cause and effect, or in the way 
of resemblance, or lastly as included under the same name. 
TVhen a man forbears to strike a match near a barrel of gun- 



54 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

powder, Mill says that the train of ideas urging forbearance 
is merely a sequence, or rather a set of sequences, of ideas : — 
"I strike the match on a box" — "the stroke produces a 
spark " — " the spark ignites the gunpowder " — " the ignition 
of the gunpowder causes an explosion." This set of sequences 
is all that is involved, according to Mill, in the predication, 
" This gunpowder will explode if I -strike the match against 
the box." The analysis is here obviously, almost grotesquely, 
deficient, from the omission once more of the element of 
conviction. All the above ideas might successively pass 
through the mind without giving rise to the helief which 
would warrant a predication of the kind pointed out. [Anal. 
i. 187. J. S. Mill's note.] Predication of Kesemblance is 
in the same way regarded as merely naming, and nothing 
else. And just as propositions or predications are nothing 
but naming, so also is the syllogism by which a third propo- 
sition is elicited from two of such predications as premises. 
All idea of there being an inferential process, or of fresh 
information being conveyed in syllogizing, is abandoned. 
The successive predications : " every tree is a vegetable " — 
" every oak is a tree " — " therefore, every oak is a vege- 
table," are, according to Mill, naming, and nothing but 
naming, throughout. The same criticism which applies to 
his account of predication will, of course, apply to his account 
of syllogism, on which we may have something further to say 
hereafter, and also to his corresponding view of arithmetical 
and geometrical propositions, as being merely verbal. When 
(according to Mill), we say that 7 + 5 = 12, or that the three 
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, w T e merely 
call 7 + 5, and the three angles of a triangle respectively, by 
other names, the marking power of wdiich is more precise and 
well known to us than that of the names which we first assign 
to them. 






NAMES OF NAMES. 55 

There is one other kind of predication to be noticed, namely, 
that in which the subject is a name, and the predicate the 
name of a name. — predications, for example, which contain 
descriptions or definitions of terms, such as " argument/' 
"metaphor," "oration," &c. It is somewhat curious that, 
having specially called attention to this class of predications, 
Mill failed to see that it is only to this class, as distinct from 
the others, that his theory of Predication as a mere naming 
operation is applicable. In such cases as these, and in such 
only, we really do not mark any sequence of sensations or 
ideas as having been actually experienced, or even as having 
been the possible object of experience : we here import no 
element of belief into the predication, and we do, in fact, what 
Mill wrongly says that we do in all predications, — " signify 
that a certain name is the mark of an idea of which another 
name is also the mark/'' 

Mill's further remarks on the other grammatical forms of 
language, such as Adverbs, &c, have no very necessary rela- 
tion to his general system, besides being based on the obso- 
lete, though ingenious speculations, of Home Tooke, as con- 
tained in his Diversions of Parley. We pass on therefore to 
Hartley's account of the connexion between words or names 
and ideas. 

Hartley does not treat the various classes of words after 
James Mill's fashion, or show how names are first given to 
sensations, then to clusters of sensations, then generalized into 
class-names, out of which sub-classes are carved by means of 
adjectives and verbs : he proceeds on a rather different tack, 
and prefers, in accordance with the more physical bent of his 
studies and observations, to give a sort of natural history of 
the process by which in the growing mind ideas are gradually 
associated with words, and thought wedded to language. 
For, as he says, words and phrases must excite ideas in us by 



56 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

association, and can excite them in no other way. Words 
may (physically) be considered from four points of view. 
They may be treated as impressions made upon the ear; or as 
the actions of the organs of speech ; or, again, as impressions 
made upon the eye by written characters ; or, lastly, as 
the actions of the hand in writing. And the above is the 
chronological order of the different ways in which children 
gradually become conversant with their use. The first of 
these relations in which words necessarily stand to the mind 
of a child, affords him some rough notion of their bare mean- 
ing, sufficient for the common purposes of life : the second 
makes the knowledge so acquired handy and serviceable: the 
third enlarges it, and renders it copious by association 
with other words in the way of definition and description : 
the last renders the mind " careful in distinguishing, quick 
in recollecting, and faithful in retaining, the new signi- 
fications o£ words " acquired by reading. Thus Hartley's 
very true account of the distinctive advantages of the methods 
by which a child learns a language, Hearing, Speaking, 
Reading, and Writing, corresponds exactly (as regards the 
last three of these) to Bacon's maxim : " Speaking maketh a 
ready man : reading maketh a full man : writing maketh an 
exact man/ 5 

When a child's attention is directed to a particular object, 
(say, his nurse) the name of that object will be pronounced to 
him. This will occur frequently, till a bond of association is 
formed between the sensation of hearing the sound of the 
name and the sensation of seeing the face and form of the 
nurse ; and the child will then, whenever he hears the nurse's 
name pronounced (supposing him, that is, to have acquired 
sufficient voluntary power over his motions) turn his head in 
that direction ; and thus the process of association of the 
name with the visible idea of the nurse will rapidly be accom- 






GROWTH OF LANGUAGE IN CHILDREN. 57 

plisbed. Later still, the converse process will take place, and 
the sensation of seeing the nurse will excite the audible idea 
of the sound of the name. He will next notice that the name 
of the nurse will still be repeated in her presence by those 
around her, notwithstanding 1 change of dress and other acci- 
dental adjuncts, and that the name of fire, &c, will be pro- 
nounced notwithstanding that the cluster of sensations of heat, 
light, &c, may be accompanied on the different occasions of 
its being named, by different sensations impressed by adjacent 
objects. He will thus learn to distinguish between the strong 
associations of the names of nurse and fire with the con- 
stitutive elements of these objects respectively, and the less 
strong counter-associations of these names with the variable 
surroundings of the objects. In this he will be unconsciously 
performing the process (to which we shall come presently) of 
Abstraction. He will be, creating, or rather re-cognizing for 
himself, one of those class-names of which Mill gives such 
a different account. The next stage in his mental progress 
will be that of associating abstract names, such as whiteness, 
with the ideas of the attributes common to several white 
objects, while by means of adjectives he will learn to make 
cross-divisions of clusters of sensations. He will, at the same 
time, be forming complex ideas out of simple by the process 
already mentioned : his idea of the nurse will comprise not only 
the simple visible idea of her face and form, but also the simple 
audible idea of the sound of her voice, and the simple idea of 
the taste of her milk, &c. The use and meaning of particles 
will be learnt mainly from their association with other names 
to which meanings have already been attached, they being, like 
the x, y, z of algebra, " determinable and decipherable, one 
may say, only by means of the known words with which they 
are joined" [Hartley, vol. i. p. 274]. The attempts made by 
the child himself to express his own wants, then reading, and 



58 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

lastly writing, complete the process of associating ideas with 
language. 

Though Hartley modestly confesses himself [Obs. on Man, 
vol. i. p. 277] "a mere novice in these speculations," and 
thinks that he has rendered e< by no means a full or satis- 
factory account of the ideas which adhere to words by asso- 
ciation," because, as he says, " it is difficult to explain words 
to the bottom by words, perhaps impossible," — yet it will be 
admitted that he must have studied the growth of association 
very carefully in children — a study of which evidence is 
afforded in several parts of his work — and that his lucid expo- 
sition proved of obvious service to James Mill in his more 
detailed theory of Naming. 

Words are, according to Hartley, divisible into four 
classes : — 

1. Those that have ideas only : (excluding of course the visible and 

audible ideas excited by the sight and 
hearing of the words themselves.) 

2. Those that have both ideas and definitions : (including under " defi- 
nitions," descriptions, and explana- 
tions by any but synonymous terms.) 

3. Those that have definitions only. 

V4. Those that have neither ideas nor definitions. 

In the first class are comprised the names of simple sen- 
sible qualities, of what Hartley calls Simple Ideas of Sensation 
and Mill Simple Ideas, such as " white," " soft," « hot," &c. 
These are felt : they cannot be defined. No more can the names 
of right-hand and left-hand, &c, in any terms that do not 
involve a definition in a circle. 1 Most names of clusters of 

1 On this ground Kant argues against the possibility of spatial relations 
being abstracted from particular and individual spaces. That amusing 
gossip, Sir Thomas Browne, in his Religio Medici (p. 17, 7th edit.), says 
*' whether Eve was framed out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not ; 



HARTLEY'S DIVISION OF WORDS. 59 

sensations (Mill's Sensible Complex Ideas), that is, of most 
objects of the natural world, vegetable, animal, and mineral, 
apprehended by science, belong to the second class; because, 
besides having- ideas corresponding to them, they are capable 
of being denned by terms representing an analysis of those 
ideas into ideas of the sensations comprising the aggregates 
or clusters. To the third class belong what Mill calls Mental 
Complex Ideas, representing clusters of ideas of sensations 
connected together arbitrarily by the imagination (such as 
" centaur," "yahoo," &c), abstract general terms, algebraical 
quantities (roots, powers, surds, &c), the technical terms of 
science and art, and, generally, those names of names which. 
Mill especially notices. Particles, which have a meaning or 
possibility of explanation only in connexion with other words, 
come under the fourth head. Hartley (in pursuance of a 
favourite analogy of his) compares rather neatly the above 
four classes to four corresponding kinds of mathematical 
relations, (language being, as he says, after all, only a kind 
of algebra). The first class would thus answer to purely 
geometrical propositions, such as do not admit of being ex- 
pressed algebraically ; the second to propositions which admit 
of being thrown into either form, geometrical or analytical ; 
the third to propositions involving equations of the higher 
orders, chances, quadratures, &c, which cannot be demon- 
strated otherwise than algebraically ; the fourth to the 
algebraical signs representing addition, subtraction, equality, 
&c, which have no meaning apart from their relation to 
other symbols. But as, even in the case of purely algebraical 
propositions, geometrical illustrations and analogies are advan- 
tageously employed to render intelligible what is otherwise 

because I stand not yet assured which is the right side of a man ; or 
whether there be any such distinction in Nature." There is not : hence 
the indefinibility. 



60 HAR1LEY AMD JAMES MILL. 

exceedingly abstract and obscure; so fables, metaphors, alle- 
gories, parables, and myths, will often render vivid, compre- 
hensible, and easily remembered, the most subtle and purely 
intellectual conceptions and modes of reasoning. In fact, it 
is doubtful whether, except for such helps, the deeper truths 
of religion would ever become intelligible to the masses whom 
they are designed to reach : and the most influential and 
penetrating philosophies have been those which have made 
use of figures, metaphors, and analogies the most ; as, for 
instance, Plato's doctrines, as compared with those of Aris- 
totle, and the Baconian system as compared with the Kantian. 
Indeed, in the case of words of almost all kinds, not those 
representing abstract ideas alone, men are continually mis- 
taking one another, because they do not mean the same 
things by the same words, different ideas being associated 
with one and the same symbol according to the different 
surrounding's and circumstances of the individual using* it. 
Words, in the first place, may be associated by different 
speakers, with different sensible impressions ; though this 
mistake is not common, and, when it does exist, is usually 
the result of a physical defect, such as colour-blindness, and 
is not, like the other misapprehensions of the meaning of 
w r ords, an " idol of the tribe/' or of " the theatre/'' Secondly, 
the ideas and definitions attached to a word in one man's mind 
may, owing to fuller, exacter, and more scientific knowledge, 
or richer artistic appreciation on his part, exceed in compre- 
hensiveness the ideas and definition attached to it in another 
person's mind. A yellow primrose means, both to a botanist 
and to a poet, infinitely more than it did to Peter Bell. To 
a Max Miiller the word "mill"" means a chapter in the 
history of the Aryan race; to an ordinary miller it represents 
nothing but the means of his livelihood. It is easy to see 
how, in the communion of thought between scientific and 



INTERPRE TA TION OF IDEA S. 6 1 

non-scientific minds, artistic and non-artistic imaginations, 
confusion will inevitably arise, since both may use the same 
name, while each annexes to it his own meaning" — a meaning 
which is really the result of, almost part of, his own life. 
But confusion and misinterpretation (as we have already seen) 
chiefly arise in the employment of names of the third class — 
names of Mental Complex Ideas — which have definitions, but 
no ideas directly answering to them ; though, of course, the 
terms of the definition are usually names (some of them, at 
least), of simple ideas of sensation. Here not only is it the 
case that the uninstructed mind will have a different defini- 
tion from that of the scientific mind of the name used in 
common by both : and that even when the definition is identi- 
cal in words, the simple ideas represented hy the explanatory 
terms are often so numerous, that the chances of mistake 
incidental to the use of the above-mentioned names of the 
second class are indefinitely multiplied : 2 but it is also true 
that two cultivated minds, but cultivated in different ways, 
brought up in different schools of thought, and possessed by 
opposing theories, are even more constantly misunderstanding 
one another, and arguing at cross purposes. Neither takes 
the pains to get within the circle, and imbibe the atmosphere, 
so to speak, of the other's mental habits, and ways of looking 
at things. To an Associationist and a disciple of Kant, for 
instance, the names, "Cause, Will, Motive, Self, Idea," would 
suggest even more widely different ideas than they would in 
the case of the philosophic and non-philosophic minds. Can 
any one suppose that James Mill, for instance, or even J. S. 
Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer, have ever really understood the 

2 Take the word " cause " for instance. To the philosopher and scientific 
man this term means something far more precise than to the untrained 
intellect. In the latter case it includes a variety of relations, rigidly 
excluded in the former, such as occasion, condition, etc. 



62 HA R TLB Y AND J A MRS MILL. 

Kantian or Hegelian stand-point? or that Coleridge and Mr. 
Stirling ever completely appreciated the point (Vappui of the 
Associationist ? In some few men, such as Goethe, and, in a 
less degree, G. H. Lewes, one sees some capacity of interpreting 
each view in terms of the other — a sort of " point of indiffe- 
rence," where true appreciation of both sides may be possible; 
but such men are very rare. Hartley pathetically expresses 
a hope, rather than an expectation, that " since children learn 
the use of words most evidently without having any data, 
any fixed point to go upon, philosophers and candid persons 
may learn at last to understand one another with facility and 
certainty." \_Ohs. on Man, vol. i. p. 285.] In the fourth 
class of names mistakes must obviously be of rare occurrence, 
rarer even than in the first, and " could not arise at all," says 
Hartley, " did we use moderate care and candour." Indeed 
in an even more hopeful, if not in a slightly ironical, strain 
he subsequently expresses his opinion, that "it seems possible 
and even not very difficult, for two truly candid and intelli- 
gent persons to understand each other upon any subject." 

In connexion with this part of his subject Hartley has some 
judicious observations on the difficulty of translating one's 
native into a foreign language, as compared with the ease 
with which the converse process is effected, which contrast he 
adduces as an illustration of that law of association by which, 
when two sensations or two ideas occur together in the order 
A, B, or a, b, respectively, the sensation B, or idea b, on re- 
curring, will not excite the idea a, with the same facility or 
regularity as that with which the sensation A, or the idea a, 
will call up the idea b. He also has ingenious comments and 
suggestions on the subject of a philosophical and universal 
language — a kind of speculation which has engaged the 
attention of philologists and grammarians, since the building 
of Babel first elevated comparative philology into the dignity 






ANALOGY AND METAPHOR, 63 

of a science to the present day — and on the subject of a philo- 
sophical dictionary to assist " candid and intelligent" persons 
in understanding' one another ; both of which schemes may 
be noticed hereafter, together with other curious Hartleian 
fancies. 

"We must not omit, before concluding this chapter, to notice 
Hartlej^s remarks on analogies and figurative language. " A 
figure," he defines as " a word which, first representing the 
object or idea A is afterwards made to represent B, on account 
of the relation which these bear to each other." But this is 
clearly a process applicable to every formation of a class-name. 
Indeed Hartley, though not very distinctly, admits as much, 
and says that, when the analogy is very complete, the expres- 
sion framed on it is considered a literal one (as in the case 
of class-names) ; when not very complete the expression is 
called a figurative one. If we suppose that the word " man " 
has been applied to several individuals, A, B, C, &c, one 
after the other, and that then the appearance of an indivi- 
dual X suggests the word " man," and he is denoted by it, 
because ot the analogy of X to A, B, C, &c, we have an intel- 
ligible law of association, and one which partly supplies the 
deficiencies in Mill's account of the framing of class-names 
with the single deliberate intention of economizing words. The 
perception of analogy between the individuals comprising a 
class is, it may be thought, one very necessary element in this 
mental operation. Of course, as Hartley observes, when a 
word appropriated ordinarily to the individuals of one genus 
or species, is applied to an individual belonging to another; 
the nearer the two genera or species are to one another in all 
essential features, the nearer the use of the word as so applied 
approaches literalness ; and the less features the two genera 
or species have in common, the nearer the use of the word 
approaches analogy proper or metaphor, either of which, when 



64 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

duly expanded and improved by means of art, may become a 
simile, a fable, a parable, or an allegory. Thus a name usually 
applied to the animal kingdom will with more literalness, and 
less metaphor, be applied to a member of the vegetable, than 
to a member of the mineral, kingdom. Expressions, it is to 
be remarked, in their original employment and application 
figurative become, from constant use, literal; and these ex- 
pressions, literal, so to speak, by second nature, can by further 
and more extended applications, become analogical again. 
With his keen eye for the educational uses, which the principle 
of association of ideas may and should subserve, Hartley 
notices how in allegories, fables, parables, and other emblema- 
tic modes of speech, all the properties, whether beauties or 
defects of, and the feelings of desire or disgust excited by, the 
images are transferred by association to the things and con- 
ceptions imaged. " Hence/'' he concludes, with an almost 
Platonic sense of the importance of a judicious myth, or 
ryevvalov ijrevSos, " the passions are nursed to good or evil, 
speculation is turned into practice, and either some important 
truth felt and realized, or some error and vice gilded over 
and recommended." 



65 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE THEORY OP ASSOCIATION" AS APPLIED TO EXPLAIN THE 
MORE IMPORTANT PROCESSES AND OPERATIONS OP THE MIND. 

Among the different powers or faculties of the intellect (as a 
great many philosophers would call them), or the different 
mental operations and processes (to use the term which Mill 
would himself prefer), the most general and comprehensive, 
the one which — if we are to begin from the beginning, and 
work down from genus to species — immediately suggests 
itself, is Consciousness. Mill accordingly considers this in 
the first place. But "can it be called a special feeling, or 
mental process, at all?" he first asks. No: because "to be 
conscious of a feeling " is only another way of saying, " to feel 
a feeling," which again is a tautological, redundant, and cum- 
bersome way of saying " to have a feeling. " Similarly the 
feeling of an idea, and the consciousness, or the being con- 
scious, of an idea are only different ways of expressing the 
same fact, namely, the having of the idea. Consequently to 
Mill Consciousness means nothing but Feeling in general. It 
is not a special feeling, operation, or state, distinct from 
other feelings, operations, or states; and to suppose (with 
Reid, for instance) that it is, onby tends to introduce confusion 
and mystery into what is otherwise clear and intelligible. 
To feel, to remember, to reason, to believe, to judge, are 
severally identical with the processes described as " being 
conscious " of feeling, remembering, reasoning, believing, or 



66 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

judging'. The term Consciousness is merely a convenient 
generical mark. [Anal. vol. i. ch. v.] 

Mill holds similar opinions as to the meaning" of the term 
Reflection. [Anal. vol. ii. pp. 176—180.] He thinks that 
it, like Consciousness, is merely a class-name. Accepting 1 
Locke's definition of the word — "that notice which the mind 
takes of its own operations " — he again insists that the having 
a state of consciousness, and the knowing, or the observing, 
or the taking notice of, that state, are all one and the same 
thing. The notice is the consciousness, and the consciousness 
is the notice. Consequently Reflection = Consciousness. When 
we say that we attended to this sensation more than to that, 
we mean that we felt this sensation more than that — that 
this, in fact, was more a sensation than that. The so-called 
Idea of Reflection has, therefore, according to Mill, nothing" 
mj'sterious about it. Its formation, as in the case of Con- 
sciousness and all other class-names, is merely the result of a 
previous process of generalization from particular instances, — 
in this case, particular instances of remembering, believing, 
judging, imagining, &c. The supposition that there is any- 
thing in the Idea of Reflection other than this has arisen from 
the unfortunate double use (already noticed) of the word Idea, 
to signify both a particular copy of a sensation, that is a 
fleeting state of consciousness entertained one moment and 
dismissed the next, and also the state of having ideas in 
general, which should more properly be called Ideation. 

The identification of feeling (including under the term the 
having a sensation and the having an idea) with the act of 
attention to feeling, is a cardinal tenet of Mill's system, and 
is continually being reiterated by him. Most later Associa- 
tionists dissent entirely from this position. Mill is on the 
whole consistent in his belief, though he does not appear to 
be conscious of all the objections which are capable of being 






CONSCIOUSNESS AND REFLECTION. 67 

unjed against it: at least he does not notice them all, or seem 
to appreciate the importance of those which he does notice. 
Take the case of reading from a book, or playing a musical 
instrument; this supplies a ready objection, which does not, 
however, seem to have occurred to -Mill. It might reasonably 
be urged that we must have had the sensations of seeing the 
letters composing the several words, while reading, or of 
touching the kej's or strings of the instrument, while playing, 
and yet we cannot be said to have attended to those sensa- 
tions. Mill's statement is, notwithstanding, completely un- 
qualified, to the effect that to talk of being conscious and at 
the same time not attending to that consciousness, is to use 
as contradictory an expression as if we were to talk of being 
conscious and not being conscious at one and the same time. 
The objection here noticed did present itself to Hartley, as 
well as to the later psychologists, such as Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
who takes the bull by the horns, and denies that we ever are 
conscious of the sight of the letters, or of the sight and touch 
of the keys, in the cases supposed ; but he thinks that these so- 
called sensations of sight and touch are really organic states, 
which though not sufficient to excite corresponding sensa- 
tions, are yet just sufficient to hold together the links in the 
associative chain. [Anal. vol. i. p. 232. J. S. Mill's note.] 

Conception, again, according to Mill, is a generical term, 
but not so generical as Consciousness and Reflection. The 
former marks a large class of feelings, but the latter terms 
mark all classes of feelings. "Which, then, is the particular 
class of feelings (using Feeling always in Mill's large sense) 
denoted by Conception ? In brief — all kinds of complex 
ideas. Conception, as the name imparts, is " the taking 
together " of things : the term, therefore, is only applicable to 
complex ideas, whether of External Objects (Sensible Com* 
plex Ideas), or of ideas of sensations arbitrarily put together 

f 2 



68 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL. 

(Mental Complex Ideas). Here again Mill objects to the 
term, the use of which so strongly illustrates the irresistible 
force of association, as well when directed into wrong, as when 
directed into right, channels. The expression seems to attri- 
bute activity to the mind. Though to have a complex idea 
is in reality exactly the same state as to conceive, yet the use 
of the term " I conceive," being in form active, imports into 
the notion of Conception an element which does not belong to 
it, and leads us to fancy that the mind is taking a more origi- 
native part when this form of words is employed than when 
we say " I have a complex idea/* 

For Mill's views on the subject of Classification we shall 
have been somewhat prepared by his theory of Class-names, 
which has been already described. The misapprehension, 
which he conceives to have existed from the times of Plato 
and Aristotle to his own, of the nature, object, and signifi- 
cance of Classification, was merely in his opinion, the outcome 
of the equally prevalent misconception of the meaning* of 
General Terms or Class-names. Hence it was that " the 
most eminent philosophers " were bewildered, and " the 
human mind enfeebled" [Aval. vol. i. p. 248]. Mill will 
have nothing to do with the Platonic Ihka, or the Aristotelian 
elSos (between which he sees little difference), or the Forms 
and Essences of other philosophic systems. At modern 
" Categories " and Hegelian " Notions," and all such fond 
things vainly invented, he would doubtless have been inex- 
pressibly shocked, had he troubled himself to read German 
philosophy. He cannot understand why so much " mystery " 
should have been made about the process. The individuals 
included in a class have, in fact, nothing in common whatso- 
ever. To say so is to use a misleading figure of speech. We 
do not — as the ancient philosophers tell us, and as even Hart- 
ley appears to think — leave out of view the variable accidents 



CONCEPTION AND CLASSIFICATION 69 

and surroundings attaching to different, particulars, and fix 

our attention exclusively on the essential qualities in which 
these particulars agree. This is not the process at all : Ab- 
straction is not the foundation of Classification. Even the 
Nominalists, who thought that so-called General Ideas were 
nothing but Names, saw that this was not the case, and (so 
far) were more in the right than the Realists, who attributed 
to a General Idea — though that Idea was regarded by them 
as entering into the composition and partaking in the nature, 
of the several members of the class represented by it — an 
independent and separate existence. Just as Class-names 
were invented according to Mill (though probably all schools 
of philosophy would now hold his view to be erroneous), 
solely for purposes of convenience and economy; so Classifica- 
tion, or the construction of a class, is merely the forming of a 
very complex, and therefore necessarily somewhat indistinct, 
idea compounded of the ideas of that large aggregate of indi- 
viduals, with which, from those motives of economy, the 
class-name has been successively associated. Mill thus appa- 
rently believes the idea of a class to be a complex idea in 
every sense in which the idea of a horse, or the idea of a cen- 
taur, is ; and that whenever a class is thought of, a hazy idea 
of a mass of undefined individuals, to which the class-name 
has habitually been applied, is instantly called up. Whether 
this explanation of the process of Classification is more or 
less " mysterious " than the accounts given by Plato, Harris, 
Cudworth, and the other Platonists from whose works Mill 
quotes long extracts, we must leave the reader to judge. 

The process of classification, says Mill, is only one among 
other modes of forming a complex idea by means of asso- 
ciation. By association the name of an individual external 
object — say St. Paul's — is connected constantly with the idea 
of it : the name never occurs without calling up the idea, or 



;o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

the idea without calling up the name. This is the simplest 
case of all. To take a rather more complicated instance : — 
a child hears the word " foot " pronounced first in connexion 
with the sensations which he derives from one of his feet, then 
with those which he derives from the other : and by degrees he 
finds the name pronounced indifferently in connexion with 
either set of sensations. Consequently, the word "foot" soon 
begins to call up in his mind the idea of either of his feet — at 
one time the one, at another time the other. It has already 
been explained — to take another example — how the ideas of 
synchronous sensations are so welded together by frequent 
association as, though in fact several, to appear only one 
(Sensible Complex Ideas). So, too, of the ideas of several 
successive sensations, the same law holds good; and we thus 
get the complex ideas of a musical tune, a hunt, a horse-race, 
&c. And, to proceed further, several sensible complex ideas 
may be combined into a yet more complex, but still sensible, 
idea ; as (e. g.) the ideas of several trees into the idea of a 
forest, or the ideas of several soldiers into the idea of an 
army ; and also the different complex ideas of successive sen- 
sations may be united into a still more complex idea — the 
ideas of several tunes into the idea of a concert, the ideas of 
several sentences into the idea of a discourse, or the ideas of 
several days into the idea of a year. And we may even obtain 
a very complex idea in both respects — complex, that is, both 
as regards the union of synchronous and the union of succes- 
sive sensations. Such an idea is the idea of Humanity (in one 
of its senses), which comprises the present together with all 
successive generations of men, past and to come. It is only a 
step further to the process of forming a class, which is nothing 
more or less than the process of associating one name, say 
" vegetable/'' with one external object after another, 1 to save 
1 With this further peculiarity, that the idea of, or sensation derived 



CLA SSIFICA TION. 7 1 

the trouble of calling the several objects by several names, and 
so swelling" the extent of language beyond all capacity of 
remembering it. The name " vegetable/' therefore, in this 
case, is not a name having a very simple idea — the idea of a 
quality perceived by a certain special activity of the mind to 
be common to a variety of objects (as the Realists thought) ; 
nor, on the other hand, is it a name having no idea at all (as 
the jtfominalists held) ; but it is " a word calling up an inde- 
finite number of ideas, by the irresistible laws of association, 
and forming them all into one very complex and indistinct 
but not, therefore, unintelligible idea." [Anal. vol. i. pp. 
265, 266.] 

Classification, then (so far), Mill has pronounced to be 
merely a device for purposes of abridgment. He even dis- 
tinctly says [p. 260] that " it is obvious and certain that men 
were led to class solely for the purpose of economizing in the 
use of names. Could the processes of naming and discourse 
have been as conveniently managed by a name for every indivi- 
dual, the names of classes and the idea of classification would 
never have existed." But later on in the chapter he seems to 
become somewhat conscious that this hypothesis will not suffice 
to account for the facts. After all, men classify according to 
some principle. There is something that not only leads them 
to classify, but guides them in classifying. "We have a tardy 
recognition of this defect in the theory at p. 268. But, in 
answer to the question, What is this principle of classification ? 
he first tells us again what the purpose is — naming with 
greater facility than would otherwise be possible. But expe- 
rience teaches us what method of grouping will best advance 
this end. Under the guidance of that experience it is that 
class-names are, by a somewhat perfunctory and unreflecting 

from, each such external object, is, on each successive occasion, associated 
back asrain with" the name. 



72 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



process — though Mill calls classification a " mighty operation 
of the human mind " — determined. But we are still unan- 
swered as to the principle of classification. We have been 
told its object — economy-; we have been told its basis — asso- 
ciation ; and we have been told that experience supplies the 
principle. But what, then, is the principle? We are finally 
told in the last pages of the chapter. [Pp. 270, 271.] " It is 
easy to see what principle it is which is mainly concerned in 
classification, and by which we are rendered capable of that 
mighty operation; on which as its basis the whole of our 
intellectual structure is reared. That principle is resem- 
blance." If this is Mill's view, it is more than ever inex- 
plicable wh} 7 he should have stopped short here, and have 
refused to entertain the theory which is the logical and 
legitimate issue of that view — the theory which most philo- 
sophers up to the present time, including Hartley, and even 
the Nominalists, 2 have held — namely, that according to 
which abstraction is made the ground of classification. Ab- 
straction is as necessary to classification, according to almost 
all philosophers, except Mill, as classification itself is — 
according to several, such as Mr. Herbert Spencer — to 
ratiocination. Mill, however, marks off classification from 
both the one and the other by a broad and distinct line — 
indeed, is compelled to do so by his peculiar view of the 
former as subserving solely the uses of economy in naming. 
However, our business is not to criticize here, and we pro- 
ceed to Mill's account of Abstraction, which, if not acceptable, 
is at all events clear, definite, and consistent with the rest of 
his philosophy. 

In the operation of naming — as has been pointed out above 
— we first assign names to clusters of sensations, or individual 

2 Mill is mistaken in supposing that the Nominalists denied any idea cor- 
responding to a class-name, or any process corresponding to Abstraction. 



MILL OX ABSTRACTION. 73 

objects; next, we generalize these, to represent classes of 
objects ; lastly, finding that the class-names have served the 
purposes of economy at the expense of adequate representation 
of important varieties of feeling, we carve cub-classes out of 
classes, and species out of genera, by framing adjectives. But, 
having done this, we are led to extend the operation in another 
direction. Having carved out of the class "rose" the sub- 
class " yellow rose," we perceive that for the very same reason 
that we call a rose yellow, we may call a gate yellow, or a ball 
yellow. In the cluster of ideas represented by the name 
" rose " I single out one, that of colour, and colour of a par- 
ticular kind, for special attention. But the sensation and the 
idea of yellow occurs in connexion with other clusters ; con- 
sequently, by degrees the name " yellow " tends to call up 
not only the idea of yellow rose, but also the ideas of classes 
of other yellow objects ; and thus the adjective applied to one 
class of clusters after another, in all of which the idea cor- 
responding to that adjective is an ingredient, is associated 
with all those classes indifferently, just as the idea cor- 
responding to a class-name is asscciated with all or any of 
the individuals of the class indifferently. The word "yellow" 
is therefore associated with numberless qualifications of the 
idea of yellow by other ideas which in different cases are com- 
bined with it. These different qualifying ideas, together with 
the idea itself of yellow, are at last commingled, or massed, 
into one indefinite and vague complex idea, just as the ideas 
of the different individuals composing a class are welded into 
a complex idea of a similarly indeterminate character. In the 
former case, we get the formation of the idea corresponding to 
the adjective, in the latter, of the idea corresponding to the 
substantive, in language. And, in both cases, the idea and 
the name exert a reciprocal influence on one another. As the 
substantive " man " calls up the ideas of a variety of indi- 



74 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL. 

vidual men, while any individual man calls up the idea of the 
name ff man ; " and it again calls up another individual man; 
so the adjective " yellow " calls up a variety of classes of 
clusters where yellow colour is an ingredient, any of these 
clusters calls up the name " yellow/'' and the name again calls 
up the idea of some other cluster in which the idea of yellow 
is a prominent feature. The adjectival name, it will be 
observed, notes (in James Mill's language), or especially 
marks and is associated with, the constant and invariable 
sensation or idea of yellow ; it connotes, or marks along with 
this principal idea, certain secondary ideas, to wit, those of the 
variable clusters with which the name is indifferently asso- 
ciated. Drop the variable and connoted clusters, the conno- 
tation, as Mill calls it, from the adjectival names or the 
concretes, " yellow/'' " bitter," c% large/' &c, and the process 
of abstraction is performed ; and if a suitable mark is appended 
to the adjectives to indicate this elimination of the variable 
clusters, such as (in English) the suffix " -ness," the abstract 
names " yellowness," " bitterness," &c, are formed. Ab- 
straction is this, according to Mill, and it is nothing more. 
It is thus, though analogous to classification, a perfectly dis- 
tinct process; and the latter is not necessarily related to, or 
dependent upon, the former. 

Hartley's numerous corollaries resemble the postscript of a 
lady's letter in this, that his best guesses and suggestions 
are often contained in them. Accordingly, we find in some 
corollaries to Proposition lxxix. [vol. i. p. 273] some interesting 
reflections on the process of abstraction. He notices, first, how 
a particular element in a cluster of sensations or ideas, to 
which a name is attached, may force itself on the attention 
more than its other ingredients. Generally this element is a 
visible idea, but sometimes it is otherwise. This prominent 
idea, he further remarks, will generally be found to be a 



HARTLEY OX ABSTRACTION. 



/ D 



prominent idea, not only in one, but in several kinds of 
clusters. Hence such ideas as " white/' " whiteness," for 

instance, after having been associated with the different visible 
appearances of milk, linen, paper, &c, " get a stable power of 
exciting the idea of what is common to all, and a variable one 
in respect of the particularities, circumstances, and adjuncts." 
Thus, though Hartley does not sufficiently recognize the 
mind's activity in paying special attention to the common 
element in a variety of objects, and speaks rather of that 
element forcing itself upon the notice of the mind, yet he 
particularly asserts that it is this something common to all 
the objects of which the mind takes cognizance, when it 
performs the function of abstraction. He, in fact, adopts the 
most considerable feature in that theory which his successor 
pronounces to be u mysterious.'" 

To return to Mill. Having expounded what in his view 
Abstraction is, and what was the purpose for which it was 
primarily resorted to, namely, the formation of subordinate 
classes, he admits that this mental operation does, in fact, 
serve a still more useful purpose. \_Anal. vol. i. p. 314.] 
The relation or order of ideas and sensations most important 
to mankind is the relation of antecedent and consequent, or 
the order of succession. On the knowledge of this relation 
between the various phenomena presented in the natural and 
the mental world, depends nearly all that part of human 
science which is available for the uses of life, and, through it, 
the welfare or the reverse of men. If, therefore, we observe 
a certain sensation, or cluster of sensations, follow another 
cluster of sensations, it becomes of paramount importance 
to us to mark what particular ingredient of all those 
which go to form this latter cluster produces the former 
sensation, or cluster of sensations. Now for the purpose of 
experimenting on the effects of any such ingredient, we must 



;6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

be able to isolate it as far as possible not only from tbe re- 
maining" ingredients of the particular cluster, in which we first 
observe its existence, but from the remaining ingredients of 
other clusters in which it is equally to be found. It is neces- 
sary, therefore, to mark the ingredient thus found in company 
with these different "variable adjuncts/'' as Hartley would 
call them, by a special name, and separate it in our thoughts 
(where we cannot separate it physically), in order to reason 
out its effects (where we cannot watch them). And this is 
Abstraction; which is thus seen to be one of the necessary 
preliminaries to Prediction, while Prediction is necessary to 
Science, to Happiness, to the business of life — even to Life itself. 

We now come to those processes of mind which, though 
closely marked off from one another by most schools of philo- 
sophy, James Mill, owing to his having committed himself to 
certain rigid principles relating" to the formation or the having 
of ideas, experienced some difficulty in satisfactorily distin- 
guishing. We allude to Imagination, as contrasted with 
Belief on the one hand, and Memory on the other. 

Imagination, in Mill's view, differs from Conception in that, 
whereas the latter relates to the having of complex ideas, the 
peculiarity of which generally is that their component simple 
ideas are synchronous, the former represents the combining of 
ideas in a less or greater number (whether simple or complex) 
successively. This is the process of Imagination : any particu- 
lar imagination (the term being, like sensation, used in two 
senses) is, therefore, a train of ideas, while any particular con- 
ception (here again there is a corresponding double meaning) 
is a single, though a complex, idea. 

Imagination, like Conception, is often loosely used in as 
wide a sense as Consciousness itself. But in strictness, of 
course, both the one and the other are far less extensive in 
scope than Consciousness, and are related to it only as species 



IMAGINATION. 77 



to genus. Imagination is often applied in an exclusive sense 
to the poet's special gift, but this is merely a popular restric- 
tion which philosophy cannot notice. In the essential mean- 
ing of the term, there is no person who has not Imagination, 
because there is no person who has not trains of ideas in his 
mind at any given waking moment. The poet differs from 
other men in his imagination, because to him trains of ideas 
and the formation of such trains are ends in themselves, 
whereas to the lawyer, soldier, or physician, it is ordinarily 
otherwise. But this does not make the constitutive features 
of imagination any the less identical in all these cases. Ima- 
gination is none the less the having or entertaining of suc- 
cessive ideas, whatever may be the nature, interest, or object 
of these ideas. In a philosophical sense, the lawyer who con- 
siders how he will frame an opinion or conduct a case, the 
general planning a campaign, the scientific man solving a 
problem, the chess-player at his game, is as much exercising 
his imagination as the poet, who sees before him iC shapes 
more real than living man, nurslings of immortality."" 

Another inexact use of the term Imagination is apparent, 
whenever it is applied (as it was by Dugald Stewart) solely to 
the putting together of ideas in new combinations — in such 
combinations, that is, or successions of ideas as have not been 
suggested by previous combinations and successions of sensa- 
tions. Dugald Stewart further thought that such combina- 
tions should be destined and directed to some end : and this 
latter element also Mill very properly repudiated. 

Hartley's views on this subject differed little if at all from 
those of Mill. He too was of opinion that the term Imagina- 
tion simply represents a succession of ideas linked together 
according to certain laws of association, often unknown or 
unobserved by us. But, following his usual method, he 
treats this operation of the mind more physically, perhaps, 



;8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

than psychologically, and has proceeded in his investigation a 
very short way, when he informs us [vol. i. p. 383] that "in 
all the cases of imagination and reverie the thoughts depend, 
in part, upon the state of body or mind/'' and he goes on to 
allude to the importance of " a pleasurable or painful state of 
the stomach/' &c. He flies off at a tangent to those unex- 
plored fields of physical inquiry (such as dreams, prophecies, 
visions, and the like), and embarks on those (c strange seas of 
thought " which had such a fascination for him. He does not 
keep to Mill's severe and philosophical view of the essence and 
office of Imagination. It may suffice, therefore, just to call 
the reader's attention to his occasional acute observations, 
such as that the various scenes in a dream are linked together 
by association, and, to a certain extent, according to the laws 
of association, but that we are not offended at the wildest 
sequences of images, because the counter-associations, which 
would under ordinary circumstances dispel them, are in abey- 
ance during sleep; — to his explanation of the phenomenon in 
dreaming which has within the last few years been discussed 
under the name of levitation, and of somnambulism; — to his 
curious and intelligent remark that the wildness of dreams is 
necessary to the health of the intellect in one sense, because 
they tend to break down the accidental associative links, 
which otherwise might become so cemented by continuance as 
to be rendered indissoluble, without having, so to speak, any 
title to this durability, and thus induce even madness in time ; 
and to the characteristic physician's caution, with which he 
concludes the chapter, to the effect that men may test their 
health by the pleasantness or the unpleasantness of their 
dreams. We now pass on to the two philosophers' analysis 
of Belief, that of James Mill being almost the turning-point 
of his whole system, while Hartley's is full and exhaustive, 
though not so clear as that of his successor. 



79 



CHAPTER V. 

BELIEF, A3 INTERPRETED BY THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 

In Belief are included Memory and Judgment; and with 
Judgment are connected the steps and means by which we 
arrive at it, Evidence and Ratiocination. But after consider- 
ing Belief, the genus, it will be necessary, before considering 
Memory, the first of the two species mentioned, to investigate 
the elements which have to be added to those comprised in the 
mental operation of Belief — (the differentia, that is) — in order 

to constitute Memorv. This will involve an examination of 

«/ 

the Ideas of Time and Personal Identity. We propose ac- 
cordingly in this chapter to give Mill's and Hartley's account 
of the following intellectual states, and in the following 
order : — Belief [Time, Personal Identity] : Memory: Judgment 
[Evidence, Ratiocination]. 

Belief, we have implied, is related to Memory, on the one 
side, and to Judgment on the other, as genus to species. 
This, however, is not strictly in accordance with Mill's views, 
at least as regards the relation of Belief to Memory. He 
says, indeed, in the chapter on Belief, that "it encroaches on the 
provinces both of Memory and Judgment :" and even in one 
passage [vol. i. p. 359] admits Memory to be " a case of 
Belief," but in the chapter on Memory he nowhere uses such 
language ; and he appears not to hold this view seriously, at 
all events to the extent to which J. S. Mill holds it, who 
thinks that Memory necessarily implies Belief, and cannot 



So 



HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



exist without it. 1 Moreover, while he treats Judgment under 
Belief, in his arrangement of intellectual processes, he treats 
Memory quite apart as a thing by itself: though, according 
to the more sound view of the editor and commentators of the 
Analysis, there was no reason why the latter should not have 
had the same rank and place assigned to it as the former. It 
will be convenient for purposes of exposition to adopt what 
should logically have been, rather than what was, James 
Mill's classification of Belief and the states connected with it. 
The accompanying table may serve as a clue to our succeeding 
observations. 

Belief: f I. Belief in events, real existences. 

1. Belief in present events or existences: 

(a.) Belief in immediate existences present to 

our senses. 
(5.) Belief in immediate existences not present 
to our senses, either 

J (a) Which we have not perceived 
< [Testimony], 

[ 0) Which we have perceived. 
Belief in past events or existences : 

/(a.) When the event or existence has been the 
object of our senses at some past time. 
[Memory, Time, Personal Identity.] 
{b.) When it has not. 

j (a) Belief of Testimony [Evidence]. 
J 0) Uniformity of Law of Nature 
[as in 3]. 

Belief in future events or existences : [Anticipation — 
inseparable association of like consequents with 
like antecedents]. 
^11. Belief in the Truth of Propositions : Judgment. [Ratioci- 
nation and Evidence.] 

Belief in events or real existences is, then, the first of 

1 See Analysis, vol. i. p. 342, note, and pp.411 — 413, where Belief and 
Memory (as involving it) are both contrasted with Imagination. 



BELIEF IN PRESENT EXISTENCES. Si 

Mill's two grand classes of Belief. And, first, as to belief 
in present events and real existences, which may either be in 
immediate relation to my senses at the time of belief, or 
not. 

Of belief in the former kind of existences Mill's account 
is brief and perfunctory. It is based on the ever-recurring 
formula — " to have a sensation or idea, and to believe that I 
have it, is one and the same thing/'' The two states of con- 
sciousness are not in any way distinguishable. Consequently, 
belief in the sensations derived from objects present to my senses 
is neither more nor less than the experience of those sensations. 
If it be objected that belief in a sensation implies something 
added to the sensation, namely, the associated idea of the 
Self; and that, in this sense, sensation may be distinguished 
from the belief in it; Mill replies that the idea of the Self is 
associated with the former just as much as with the latter. 
It, like the ideas of Position and Unity, is as much, and as 
inseparably, combined with the sensations of sight, for in- 
stance, derived from an object, as with the belief in the sensa- 
tion. Sensation, then, in such cases, is itself belief. The 
curtain here is the picture. 

But belief in the external object from which we derive the 
sensation is not the same thing as, and contains more elements 
than, belief in the sensation. "When I am said (in ordinary 
language) to see a rose, I actually see colour alone : but the 
object, rose is a combination of colour, extension, figure, &c. 
Therefore, though I imagine that I see extension, figure, &c 
I in reality only infer them ; and that I fancy to myself that 
I see them, is due to association in one of its strongest forms, 
Rapid and continually repeated passages of thought from the 
sensation of colour to the ideas of extension, form, distance, 
position, bulk, &c, lead us to suppose that we become, in the 
very experience of the sensation, immediately possessed of 

G 



S2 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

that information as to the object, which is really the result of 
association of (in the first instance) visual sensations with 
tactual sensations, sensations of muscular pressure and re- 
sistance, and so on. The association in this case produces 
each of the well-known effects which always follow its opera- 
tion, when very forcible : namely, first, the blending of the 
associated feelings into a single complex feeling ; secondly, 
the riveting of the associative link so fast that it cannot be 
broken, and that the mental illusion is rendered permanent and 
indissoluble ; just as the optical illusion of seeing a stick pre- 
sent a bent appearance in the water is permanent and innate, 
so to speak, though the appearance is all the time known not 
to answer to the fact. This mental illusion is more espe- 
cially incidental to the sensations of sight, because sight is the 
primary and leading element in the clusters of sensations im- 
pressed upon us b}' external objects ; though there are also 
similar illusions of less power connected with the other senses, 
as (for example) when we fancy that we hear distance, whereas 
we hear only modifications of sound, and infer the distance of 
the object. Visual sensations, however, call up the resi- 
dues of the clusters with greater facility, frequency, and 
certainty than any of the sensations proper to the other 
physical organs. 

Therefore, when I see an external object, my belief in its 
existence amounts to nothing more than this : that, with the 
sensation of colour impressed upon my organs of sight, I have 
inseparably associated the ideas of a variety of other sensa- 
tions ; and with them I further have inseparably associated 
the idea of myself as having them ; that is, I believe that in 
certain circumstances I should have any one of these sensa- 
tions. By walking to the object, I should have the sensation 
of distance ; by touching it, that of hardness or softness ; by 
the putting forth of muscular energy, I should have the" 






THE UNKNOWN CA USE OF SENS A 7 IONS. 83 

sensations of resistance., solidity, or impenetrability; by 
touching, and the expenditure of muscular force combined, I 
should have that of extension and figure. 

To our supposed perception, inference, or belief of the ex- 
istence of an unknown cause of such a cluster of sensations as 
is described above, nothing* in re rum naturd corresponds. The 
Substratum, as it is called, of certain qualities in the object, 
which produce sensations in us, is merely a fiction of asso- 
ciation. We are always observing sequences. The order of 
succession in phenomena, or rather in our sensations and ideas, 
is more important to us than any other order. The tendency, 
consequently, in our minds is to find an antecedent to every 
consequent, and, if we cannot find one, to invent one. We 
are compelled by a law of our nature " to look before and 
after." This is another case of inseparable association. " The 
perception or idea of an event instantly brings up the idea of 
its constant antecedent : definite and clear if the antecedent is 
known, and indefinite and obscure if it is unknown." \_A11al. 
vol. i. p. 35*2]. Now constant antecedent is Cause, and 
Cause is nothing else. Therefore the habit of seeking for 
such constant Antecedents is of itself quite sufficient to account 
for the belief in the existence of a supposed Object, as Sub- 
stance, Cause, or Substratum of its various qualities (cor- 
responding to the various sensations in us), though that 
Object or Substratum, except as a convenient and compre- 
hensive name for the clusters of sensations with which we are 
simultaneously affected, is non-existent. 

Xow as to the belief in the present existence of objects not 
in immediate relation to our senses. Of this there may be 
two cases, according as the objects have or have not been pre- 
viously at any time perceived by us. The former is the only 
•case which it is necessary to examine now ; since the latter, 
being an instance of Belief in Events on Testimony, may con- 

G 2 



S4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

veniently be considered below in connexion with the subject 
of Belief in Past Events on Testimony. 

What then is implied in my belief in the present existence 
of Westminster Hall, which, though not now present to my 
senses, I have seen at some previous time in my life? I 
imply (for one thing) that if I were at this moment at or near 
Westminster Hall, I should derive the same sensations from 
it as I have derived on previous occasions. Put in this 
form, the belief is a case of Anticipation of the future on the 
analogies of the past, which will be considered as the third 
main head of beliefs in real existences. But it may be put in 
another way. In the belief in the present existence of West- 
minster Hall is involved my belief, that if any creature 
endowed with organs of sense like my own is at this moment 
in or near Westminster Hall, he or it has sensations analogous 
to the sensations which I myself have experienced when so 
situated. The explanation of this mental condition is to be 
found once more in the laws of Association. There is an in- 
vincible association between the idea of an animal body and 
sensation. First the association is created between the idea 
of my own human body and the ideas of my own sensations, — 
then between the ideas of human bodies other than my own, 
and the ideas of sensations analogous to my own, — then, 
similarly, as to the other creatures lower and lower in the 
scale of the animal kingdom, till we stop short at vegetables, 
and there the association, to any considerable extent (except 
in fetichism and poetry, thelowest and the highest intellectual 
states), fails us. "It is apparent/' Mill therefore concludes 
[Anal. vol. i. p. 358] "that the case in which I believe 
other creatures to be immediately percipient of objects, of 
which I believe that I myself should be percipient if I were 
so situated as they are, resolves itself ultimately into this par- 
ticular case of my belief in certain conditional sensations of 



BELIEF IN PAST EXISTENCES. 85 

raj own" that is, again, to the case of Anticipation, which 
we reserve for the present. 

Oar Belief in Past Existences is, in other words, our pre- 
sent idea of something existing, and the assignment of it to a 
time past. Here again we have an obvious ground of sub- 
division into the two cases, — first, where the object in the past 
existence of which we believe has, secondly, where it has not, 
been present to our senses. The former of these kinds of 
Belief is, according to Mill, neither more nor less than 
Memory. Just as the belief in the present existence of an 
object now in relation to my senses is Sensation, and nothing 
else, so the belief in the past existence of an object which 
was then present to my senses is Memory, and nothing more. 2 
Remembering a past event, and believing it, are merely two 
different names for one and the same state of conscious- 
ness. What, then, we have to ask, is involved in the process of 
Memory ? Hartley and Mill both give answers to this ques- 
tion from their respective points of view, — Hartley, as usual, 
looking to his favourite vibration-theory, and relying largely 
on physical analogies and proofs, Mill looking to the 
principles of Association alone, which he wisely accepts as 
elementary, without seeking to go behind them for a more 
recondite solution. 

Memory, says Mill, can only take place through the medium 
of ideas. Every act, or (as he would prefer to call it) state of 
memory, involves an idea. But it also involves more than 
this. The state of memory cannot exist without the idea ; 
but the idea can exist without the state of memory. A 
further necessary element is association — association of ideas 
in trains according to its ordinary laws. This is manifest on 

2 Here Mill plainly declares Memory to be a species of Belief, and 
though it is not treated by him in this connexion, this is clearly its proper 
and philosophical place. 



S6 HARTLEY A ND J A MES MILL. 

an analysis of the process called " trying to remember " 
(Aristotle's " avaixvi)<ji<$" as opposed to passive memory or 
" fivtj/uLT]," the mere recurrence of associated ideas without the 
exercise of any volition on our part). When we try to 
remember a thing", we run over every idea which we think 
may have a chance of recalling to our minds, by means of its 
previously contracted associations, the idea of which we are 
in quest. Each idea which we have experienced has, we 
know, been the centre of several threads of association ; we 
therefore try several ideas at random, in the hope of one of 
them eventually having" a path to the idea which we require. 
In some cases, of course, we take the precaution to determine 
the associations beforehand, as in the familiar devices of 
underlining" passages in a book, tying a knot in a handker- 
chief, &c. Similarly, in order to remember the sequence of 
words, we repeat tbem, because we know that repetition is 
one of the most effective agents in generating association. 
Hence it is, that if we try to remember words which we have 
learnt, in any other order than that in which we committed 
them to memory, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to 
do so. Mill gives an interesting example of these pre- 
determined associations for the purpose of securing accurate 
remembrance, in the practice of some of the ancient orators, 
who used to create an artificial relation in their own minds 
between the different parts of a temple, or other building, in 
the sight of which they were about to speak, and the heads of 
their intended discourse. By means of occasional glances at 
the temple, they were thus enabled in a double sense to work 
up from the foundation to the coping-stone of their orations. 
Of course, the success of such an experiment would depend 
on the relation which the speaker's power of remembering 
pictorial simultaneous representations bears to his power of 
remembering audible successive sounds. Men vary very 



MEMOR Y. 87 



much in this respect. Some will remember a lecture better 
than an essay, and an acted than a written play. Even in 
reading a book some men, with more or less conscious effort, 
shape to themselves audible ideas of the sounds of the words ; 
illiterate persons even reproduce the audible sounds them- 
selves ; while others read so rapidly that they are not con- 
scious to themselves of forming any other than a visible idea 
of the written symbols. 3 

Ideas and Association, then, are necessary to constitute 
Memory. But are these all ? Imagination involves these, 
as we have already seen ; and, if these were the only essen- 
tial ingredients, receptive or representative imagination — 
imagination, that is, of clusters of sensations, Aristotle's 
" alaOijTifCT] (pavTaaia" — would involve as much as " fiv7]fir)"; 
and the active or creative imagination, which frames and 
deals with clusters of ideas after its own fashion — Aristotle's 
" fiovXevriKi] <pavTa(Tia" — would, if this were the case, be 
tantamount to " dvd/nvrja-if;." What, then, must be added 
to ideas and their association in trains to make passive 
imagination equivalent to passive memory, and active or 
deliberative imagination equivalent to active memory or re- 

3 Professor Max Muller notices an ingenious attempt (by Don Sinibaldo 
de Mas in his Ideograjpkie) to create direct associations between ideas and 
pictorial or visible emblems, by constructing a language consisting of 2600 
figures, framed on the pattern of musical notes, and capable of innumei*- 
able variations in meaning, corresponding to those effected by the parts 
of speech, according to the position of the head of the note {Science of 
Language, vol. ii. p. 48). This would have commended itself to Hartley. 
Mr. Shute (in his Discourse on Truth) is, however, afraid that, even as 
it is, men are more and more losing their power of associating ideas with 
audible emblems, and tend more and more to assimilate visible signs in 
preference to them. The whole subject of the differences between the 
pictorial or local, and the successive or eventual memory, is gone into 
by Mr. Francis Galton, " Mental Imagery," in Fortn. Rev., September, 
1880, and Mind, July, 18S0. 






83 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

collection ? The answer is : The element of recognition. 
" Suppose that my present state of consciousness is the idea 
of putting my finger in the flame of the candle. I recognize 
the act as a former act; and this recognition is followed by 
another, namely, that of the pain which I felt immediately 
after. This part of my constitution, which is of so much 
importance to me, I find it useful to name. And the name 
I give to it is Memory. " [Analysis, vol. i. pp. 319,320]. 
But this recognition is a somewhat complex process. "What 
are its elements ? Can it be reduced to a case of Associa- 
tion? 

We may remember either sensations or ideas formerly ex- 
perienced by us. In remembering a sensation — say, the having 
seen an object at some past date — the following conditions are 
implied : first, a visible idea of the object; secondly, the idea 
of my having seen it. 4 And the former irresistibly calls up 
the latter idea, and in this we have (so far) merely another 
case of inseparable association. 

But into what elements is the idea of my having seen an 
object resolvable ? First of all, we may break it up into : 
(1) the idea of my present (the remembering) self; (2) the 
idea of my past, the then sentient, and now remembered, self. 
These two ideas are connected at the moment of memory. 
How? By running over the intermediate states of con- 
sciousness, and (by means of a rapid process already referred 
to) uniting the two terms and the intervening links into one 
very complex idea. And this, again, is association. 

The remembrance of ideas admits of an exactly similar 

4 To these J. S, Mill would add — the belief (independent of the evidence 
of others) of my having seen the object. And in this he would be clearly 
right; but James Mill thinks that there is nothing elementary or unana- 
lysable in Belief itself, which he regards as in every case reducible to 
Association of ideas in the last resort, as will be seen in the sequel. 



REM E JIB R A NCE OF PAST IDEA S. 89 

explanation. I remember, for example, my idea of Charles I/s 
execution. In doing so, I have, — 

(1) The ideas of the various acts and objects related and described in 

the account of the execution ; 

and 

(2) [Inseparably associated with the above], the idea of my having 

had those ideas. 

And (2) again includes, — 

(a) The idea of my present self remembering : "| United by asso- 

(b) The idea of my past self conceiving : Iciation into one 

(c) The idea of the intervening states of consciousness: J complex idea. 

To put the matter comprehensively (so as to include the 
remembrance both of past sensations and of past ideas), the 
necessary elements in the memory of our past experiences, of 
whatever kind, would seem to be as follows : — 

' i. The idea of my past self 

sentient or conceiving = f The idea (of a past sensation : or, 

(of a past idea. 
The idea of the Self. 
The idea of my present 
self as remembering = r The idea of the Self 

< The idea of [Remembering =] Asso- 
v ciating. 
The intervening trains 
of ideas, the calling 
up of which depends 
upon Association. 

So that the memory of past experiences has now been 
resolved to Ideas (one of which must always be the Idea of the 
Self), and Association. Nothing, therefore, now needs eluci- 
dation, in connexion with memory, except this constant factor, 
the Idea of Personal Identity, after analyzing which we may 



9 o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

(since there can be no Memory without involving it in some 
way) examine the idea of Time. 

Neither of the two important metaphysical problems of 
modern times connected with the investigation of the concep- 
tions, ideas, or forms (as they are variously called) of the 
Ego and of Time, attracted the attention of Hartley; con- 
sequently we must be taken as here presenting the views of 
James Mill alone. 

Personal Identity, or the Identity of the Ego, must be ex- 
plained on the same grounds and by the same method as the 
Identity of other human beings, and this again on the same 
grounds as the Identity of other animal existences ; and the 
Identity of animal existences in general can be explained in 
no other way than the Identity of inanimate objects. [Anal. 
vol. ii. pp. 164 — 170 ] It is necessary, then, to satisfy our- 
selves as to the essence of Identity, generically considered, 
before we can show the nature of that particular species of it 
called Personal Identity. 

Now when I say, that the object which I now see is the 
same which I saw ten years before, or that the words which 
I now read were written by a certain author 2000 years ago, 
or that the object which was seen 2000 years ago by one man 
was the same which was seen L 000 years ago by another, — 
Belief is involved, and nothing else. The first example pre- 
sents one case of Belief, the second another, and the third 
another ; but all alike are Belief. The reader will be some- 
what surprised to find here what looks very like the inter- 
pretation of a thing by itself. One of the kinds of Belief, 
namely, Memory, is alleged to involve, among other elements, 
the Idea of Personal Identity ; and this idea, as being merely 
a case of Identity in general, is then found to be a case of 
Belief. The definition in a circle is rendered still more con- 
spicuous when we find that, of the three instances of Identity 



BELIEF IN I DEN TIT Y. 9 1 

given above, Mill would call the first an instance of that 
specific hind of Belief which is called Memory [the other two 
being cases of Belief in Evidence or Testimony, or of Belief 
in the Uniformity of Nature, or of a combination of both]. 
And as to Identity in general, Mill's own statement is : — 
" As we have already shown wherein Belief, in all its cases, 
consists " [it must be remembered that the chapter on Identity 
was written after all the cases of Belief had been examined — 
an arrangement from which we have seen reason to depart] 
"we have implicitly afforded the explanation of Identity" 
[Anal. vol. ii. p. 165] : — while, in the chapter on Memory, 

he says, " It is in this process that Memory consists 

No obscurity rests on any part of this process, except the 

idea of self, which is reserved for future analysis 

All this will be more evident when what is included in the 
notion o£ Personal Identity is included.''' [Anal. vol. i. p. 360.] 
Belief and Identity cannot, on Mill's own showing, be both 
capable of analysis. Either Belief must involve the idea of 
Personal Identity as an ultimate and irreducible element, or 
this latter must similarly imply Belief. In the face of the 
contradiction in terms patent in Mill's own language, we will 
not attempt to guess which element he really thought the 
unanalyzable one. 5 Let us examine, however, his reduction of 
Personal Identity to a case of Identity in general. 

We have already seen what is implied when we say that 
the inanimate external object which we now perceive, is the 

5 J. S. Mill, in his notes to the Analysis, evidently considers that the 
idea of the Self involves Memory, while Memory involves Belief, and that 
this Belief is the ultimate element. Judging from the frequency with 
which he insists on this view, by way of correction on numerous other 
occasions where James Mill leaves out of account this ultimate factor in 
a variety of mental processes, we ma}-, perhaps, conclude that it was 
Personal Identity which the latter, if pressed, would have admitted to be 
irreducible. 



92 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

same object as that which we have previously perceived. 
But what do I mean when I say that some object having 
growth and life is the same now, when present to my senses, 
as it was when I perceived it at some former date? Whether 
that object be a vegetable, an animal of the lower orders, or 
a human being other than myself, I mean the same thing : 
I express my belief that there is a certain series (known by 
experience) of antecedents and consequents, which is called 
the life of that object; that this series is capable of being 
marked off and distinguished from all other similar series ; 
and that my present perception is the last link in that par- 
ticular series, and no other. In all these cases the Belief 
involved is one thing, and the essential thing : the evidence 
for that Belief is another thing, and may be of various kinds. 
The belief in the identity of another human being is often 
evidenced by observation, that is, sensation and memory of 
sensation; or, in other words, it is often evidenced by itself; 
but more often it rests on evidence and testimony of another 
kind as well. Now, when I use the word " same" in connexion 
with my own life, do I imply anything beyond this belief? 
Nothing whatever. The Belief is the same, and the evidence 
is the same. So far as my memory extends, my belief in my 
own identity rests on consciousness and memory, that is (as 
before), it rests on itself; it is its own evidence. When I 
get beyond reach of my memory, then my belief in my own 
identity is supported by exactly the same kinds of external 
testimony as my belief in the identity of any other person, as 
to whom observation has not been possible. 

We have said that, within the range of memory, the 
evidence for my own identity is Consciousness and Memory, 
the evidence for the identity of other men is Observation and 
Memory. In the latter case we have the memory of past 
observed facts, in the other we have the memory of past 



PERSOXAL IDENTITY. 93 

states of consciousness, added, in each case, to a present 
sensation. But observation itself is nothing* but a state of 
consciousness. Therefore the memory of a series of states of 
consciousness, coupled with an existing* state, is the evidence 
in both cases. 

But the states of consciousness remembered in the two 
cases, though they are equally evidence, become evidence in 
different ways. And here we come upon a real distinction 
between the intellectual phenomena of the two processes. In 
the one case, we remember past states of consciousness in 
ourselves as pointing to the contemporaneous or prior exis- 
tence of states of consciousness in others, or as marks of those 
states in accordance with the laws of association which 
decree that certain signs, to wit, impressions of certain 
sensations in us, shall call up in our minds the ideas of 
certain sensations of others signified by them : whereas, in 
the other case, we remember states of consciousness in our- 
selves for their own sakes, and not as pointing to anything 
else. To use the language of the law-courts, our own staters 
of consciousness are equally the evidence in either operation ; 
but in the former they are secondary evidence, in the latter 
they are primary. In the former, they are imperfect means 
of inferring the continuity and separate existence of a series 
of states of consciousness, constituting the thread of life of 
the person (other than the Ego), in whose identity we assert 
our belief: in the latter, they are, in fact, themselves the 
thread of life of the person (the Ego) in whose identity we 
believe. The difference then between Belief in the Identity 
of others, and Belief in Personal Identity, is not in the evi- 
dentiary materials, but in the manner in which these materials 
evidence the existences or events to which credence is given. 

In the idea of Time, which falls to be considered in 
connexion with Memory, Mill sees none of the mystery 



94 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

which, according to him, other philosophers have found 
in it. Its supposed necessity he regards as merely another 
result of inseparable and irresistible association, since the 
idea of succession, or of the relation of antecedent and con- 
sequent, is inseparably associated with the idea of every 
object. Any theory of Time, as one of the forms imposed by 
the mind on the matter furnished by sensation, he would, 
consequently, reject; though he agrees with Kant so far 
as to deny with him that Time is an inherent property 
or attribute of objects. Time is nothing but the abstract 
name of all successive order, just as Space is of all simul- 
taneous order, \_Anal. vol. ii. p. 132], and it is formed no 
otherwise than as other abstract names are formed. With 
the idea of every present event we associate the idea of an 
antecedent, with this latter idea the idea of an antecedent to 
that, and so on c ad infinitum/ The idea of the present 
event, coupled with the ideas of the antecedents so associated 
with it, make up our idea of the Past, which therefore implies 
infinite concrete past successions of objects; it notes, that is, 
in Mill's phraseology, or primarily marks, successions ; it 
connotes, or secondarily marks, objects. Omit the connota- 
tion, as must be done to form any abstract name, and we get 
the successions, without the objects, — or Time Past in the 
abstract. In the above process put consequent for antecedent, 
and by similar steps we arrive at Time Future in the abstract. 
Next, regard all real or possible events (or objects, in Mill's 
language), whether past, present, or future, as successive, 
lump them together, and we obtain the idea of concrete Time 
in general ; that is, the successions with the objects. Take 
away the objects, and we have left the successions without the 
objects, or the idea of abstract Time in general. Thus Time 
is an abstract name, the corresponding concrete to which is 
ultimately built upon an indissoluble association, which forces 



TIME IN RE LA TIOX TO MEM OR Y. 95 

us, in contemplating' any event, to go beyond it and look on 
both sides of it. "Whether the above process would not rather 
give us the abstract idea of Successiveness, and not that of 
Time at all, we will not here stop to inquire. 

The connexion of Time with Memory in Mill's system will 
be best seen in his own words [Anal. vol. ii. p. 120] ; — 
u Pastness is included under the term Memory. . . . Memory 
is a connotative term ; what it notes is the antecedence and 
consequence of the several parts of that which forms the chain 
of remembrance ; what it connotes are the feelings them- 
selves, the objects remembered. W T hen what it connotes is 
left out, and what it notes is retained, we have the idea which 
is expressed by Pastness/' Mill would presumably consider 
an analogous connexion to exist between Anticipation and 
Futureness. But Anticipation (as we shall see presently) 
rests on Belief in the Uniformity of Nature, and this again 
on Association, and the association is based on felt and re- 
membered cases of succession. There is nothing, therefore, 
as we are expressly told, in Time distinct from Memory and 
Sensations. 

Hartley differs with Mill, and agrees with Keid and most 
other philosophers, in considering Memory to be a faculty, 
and not an idea framed in a particular way. It is " that 
faculty by which traces of sensations and ideas recur, or are 
recalled, in the same order and proportion, accurately or 
nearly, as they were once presented." [06s. on Man, vol. i. 
p. 374:]. After this somewhat loose and unsatisfactory 
definition, Hartley gives us some desultory remarks, prin- 
cipally of a pathological character, on the relation between 
the state of the faculty of memory and the state of the brain \ 
in the course of which he takes occasion to notice that such a 
connexion would tend to support the vibration theory, since 
vibrations in the medullary substance of the brain may be 



96 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

presumed to be affected by such causes as disease, concussions, 
liquors, poison, &c. 

Hartley appears to hold with Mill, that the exercise of 
Memory depends almost entirely upon Association ; but he 
does not enter into any examination of the idea of the Self in 
connexion with this part of his theory. He answers the in- 
evitable query as to the nature of the difference (on this 
hypothesis) between Memory and Imagination in much the 
same way as his successor. " Let it now be asked/' he says 
[vol. i. p. 377], "in what the recollections of a past fact, 
consisting of an hundred clusters " [complex ideas] " differs 
from the transit of the same one hundred clusters over the 
fancy, in the way of a reverie ? I answer, partly in the 
vividness of the clusters, partly and principally in the 
readiness and strength of the associations, by which they are 
cemented together." The notions of Personal Identity, 
Belief, Time, as incidental to Memory, are here ignored ; 
whereas Mill would say that, in every such process as is above 
described, the idea of the Self, then sentient, and now re- 
membering, would be irresistibly called into being. Hartley 
supports his contention, by instancing the remarkable fact, — 
which Mill also notices, but explains more completely and 
philosophically, — of a man, by frequent repetition, coming at 
last to believe a fictitious story told by him to be true. This 
phenomenon, says Hartley, is attributable to the "magnify- 
ing n of the ideas and the associations by the narrator. Mill 
on the other hand, in accordance with his more careful ex- 
position of the idea of the Self as one of the constituents of 
Memory, asserts the operation to be due to the loss of one 
association, and its replacement by another. The narrator 
used to associate the ideas of the events imagined by him 
with the idea of himself as imagining or inventing them : 
this association becomes weaker and weaker, till it finally 



HARTLEY ON MEM OR V. 97 

expires altogether, and a new association, namely that between 
the ideas of these events and the idea of himself as ex- 
periencing them, takes its place. It must be admitted, how- 
ever, that the cause of this latter association supplanting the 
former, would appear, from Mill's account, to be something 
very like Hartley's " magnifying " the one, and ceasing to 
pay attention to the other. 

Hartley also refers sagaciously to the case of a man in 
doubt as to whether his trains of ideas are recollections or 
reveries. But this phenomenon too might be accounted for 
more satisfactorily on Mill's, than on Hartley's, hypothesis. 
The latter is of opinion that such a doubt, (when the ideas are 
in fact those of remembered events), represents a diminution 
of the associations between these ideas, and (when the ideas 
are in fact merely imagined) an increase of the same : but 
Mill would maintain that such a state of mind would in the 
two cases respectively indicate either a diminution or an 
increase of the association between the ideas of the events and 
the idea of the Self as percipient of them. In madness and in 
dreams, to both of which Hartley is particularly fond of 
referring, the vividness mentioned is often magnified to an 
extent which causes the mental picture or image of an action 
or object to appear the recollection, in some cases, and, in 
others, the present sensible experience, of it. Mill \_Anal. vol. 
i. p. 324-] explains such phenomena in delirium, madness, or 
dreams to be the result of a mistake of present ideas for 
present or past sensations, just as in the above-mentioned case 
of repeated fiction past ideas are mistaken for past sen- 
sations. 

Hartley's account of the attempt to recollect a thing 
(dvd/j,v7](TL<;) proceeds on the same lines as the foregoing 
notices of intellectual phenomena. "When a person desires to 
remember the name of a visible object or of a person, he 

H 



gS HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

" recalls the visible idea, or some other associate, again and 
again, by a voluntary power, the desire generally magnifying' 
all the ideas and associations ; and thus bringing* in the asso- 
ciation and idea wanted at last " [vol i. p. 381]. He points 
out, however, with his usual accuracy of observation, but with 
no attempt at explanation, that if the desire be very great, 
an opposite effect is produced. Mill's analysis of this operation 
we have already noticed. Though more precise in his 
language than his predecessor, he probably meant much the 
same thing. 

The state of the memory on recovery from concussion of 
the brain, or as existing in aged people (where it is retentive 
of old, and oblivious of recent, impressions), in idiots (where, in 
a mechanical form, it is often very extraordinarily developed 6 ), 
and in children, is explained by Hartley for the most part 
on the principles of the theory of vibrations. In this part of 
his subject we have the usual abundance of disconnected, but 
ingenious, observations, and hints, often not worked out, but 
always containing much suggestive matter. He remarks, 
for instance, in one place [vol. i. p. 376], "that the visible 
impressions which concur in the past fact " [remembered], 
" by being vivid and preserving the order of place, often con- 
tribute greatly to preserve the order of time, and to suggest 
the clusters which may be wanting : " [the help afforded to 
one another by pictorial and audible images is, as we have 
seen, made a subject of particular attention by Mill]. Again : 
" when a person relates a past fact, the ideas in some cases 
suggest the words, whilst in others the words suggest the 

6 Instances of this are given by Mr. Verdon in his Essay on Forget- 
fulness in Mind, vol. ii. p. 442. See also on Memory, and its different 
kinds, Mr. Francis Galton in his English Men of Science. The latest 
views (those of Taine, Maury, Wundt, &c), as well as his own, on the 
subject of dreaming, are given by Mr. Sully in his article on " The Laws 
of Dream-Fancy " in the Cornhill Magazine (November, 1876). 



TESTIMONY. 99 



ideas. Hence illiterate persons do not remember nearly so 
well as others, ' ceteris paribus/ " The statements that there 
are limits beyond which the separate powers of the memory 
to receive readily, and to retain durably, cannot coexist 
[vol. i. p. 381] ; and that all our voluntary powers are 
analogous to memory, and usually decay and increase " pari 
passu w — whence he concludes that the whole powers of the 
soul may be referred to the memory in a large sense, and 
that, though (as explained above) a strong memory may co- 
exist with a weak judgment, a strong judgment cannot co- 
exist with a really weak memory — are also deserving of 
attention. 

We next come to the case of Belief in those past existences 
or events, which have not at any previous time been present 
to the believer's senses. For such a form of Belief, either 
Testimony, or faith in the Uniformity of Natural Laws, is 
the foundation. First, as to Testimony or Evidence. In 
some cases (as has been pointed out), namely, where the 
event or existence is believed in from our own experience, 
sensation or memory is both evidence and belief. But, in the 
class of cases now under consideration, the Evidence is distinct 
from the Belief. It is none the less, however, Association 
which, according to Mill, constitutes the Belief, — the asso- 
ciation, that is, between the ideas of the evidencing facts or 
events and the ideas of the facts or events evidenced. 7 

The evidentiary circumstance may be in immediate relation 

7 Sir T. Browne [Religio Medici, p. 45, edit, supracit.] marks ofF the 
two classes of Belief here distinguished, with his usual delight in laying 
aside large tracts of faith in which his simple scul may spatiate : " I am 
confident," he says, " and fully persuaded, yet dare not take my oath of 
my salvation : I am as it were sure, that there is such a city as Constan- 
tinople, yet for me to take my oath thereon, were a kind of perjury, 
because 1 hold no infallible warrant from my own sense to confirm me in 
the certainty thereof." 

H % 



ioo HARTLEY AND^ JAMES MILL. 

to the thing evidenced, or it may be several removes from it, and 
only connected with it by means of a long train of associated 
links, uniting together (as in so many other instances) to form 
a single complex idea. When a sailor sees the print of a man's 
foot on the sand in a desert island, and concludes that a man 
has recently been there, there is immediate association of the 
evidence with the event evidenced, of the idea of the mark of 
a foot as consequent with the idea of the advent of a man as 
antecedent. But if the sailor tells his experience to his com- 
panions who have not yet set foot on the island, to them the 
belief is founded on the association of the idea of their in- 
formant's affirmation with the idea of the footprint, which 
idea is again associated with the idea of the existence of a 
man in the island. Human testimony, it is to be observed, is 
qua Testimony, the same as any other Testimony. The 
Watchman calling the hour is evidence in no other sense than 
the clock striking it. The links in the chain may be, and in 
complicated inferences are, extended to great length ; but 
nothing, according to Mill, is implied in the inference con- 
stituting this mode of Belief, beyond Association, however 
numerous the links may be. What then, it will be asked, is 
the state of Doubt, when two conflicting hypotheses suggest 
themselves to the mind ? Simply a struggle between an asso- 
ciation and a counter-association, wherein the weaker even- 
tually goes to the wall; but, meantime, the conflicting 
associations hinder each other from acquiring the fixity and 
inseparability necessary to produce Belief. Thus, if our ship- 
wrecked sailor should happen to see a monkey on the island, 
he will begin to doubt ; that is, the idea of the footprint in 
the sand will now call up two ideas instead of one, the idea of 
a monkey and the idea of a man ; and it will call up either 
indifferently, and therefore will be associated permanently 
with neither, till further evidence comes in on one side or the 



UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. 101 

other, such as, for instance, the discovery of some instrument, 
a kettle or a knife, which could only have been constructed by 
human agency. There would then be two ideas to call up 
the idea of a man, which would therefore acquire greater 
fixity and permanence ; since the two exciting* ideas, after 
frequent repetition, will (as has been explained already) " run 
together," as Hartley says, into one complex, or rather 
decomplex, idea calculated to call up the idea of a man with 
greater vividness and force, than the single complex idea of the 
footprint will call up the idea of a monkey. There is nothing 
in any inference as to the reality of a past event or existence 
beyond what is involved in the above simple instance. There 
is, according to Mill, merely "the antecedent, consisting of 
all the events which are called evidence/'' and u the con- 
sequent, consisting of the event or events evidenced," together 
with " that close association of the antecedent and consequent, 
which we have seen already in so many instances, constitutes 
belief." [Anal. vol. i. p. 432]. 

We may also believe in past events of which we have had 
no experience, owing solely to our faith in the Uniformity of 
Natural Laws : and, in so doing, we rely on precisely the 
same grounds as those on which we rely for our belief in all 
future events. This latter is the third of Mill's forms of 
Belief in real existences, and to its consideration we now 
proceed. 

In anticipation, then, is anything to be discovered beyond 
Ideas and Association ? Mill answers once more in the 
negative. The basis of our Belief is, in such cases, the in- 
separable association of like consequents with like ante- 
cedents, and nothing beyond. In believing that an event will 
happen, I have an idea of that event, in the first place, — 
that is, the event must be such as has been suggested to me 
by the analogies of past experience, — and, further, inseparable 



102 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

association between antecedent and consequent comes into 
play. I cannot think of an event without the idea of its con- 
sequent on the one side being- called up, as naturally and 
constantly as the idea of its antecedent on the other ; to do 
so would be, according* to Mill, to have an idea and not to 
have it at the same time. And there are two good reasons 
for the inseparability of the conj miction : — the constant re- 
currence of successive phenomena in experience, with nothing 
to suggest counter-associations or counter-analogies ; and 
also the interesting character of such successions to us, deter- 
mining, as they do, our pleasures and pains, and, through 
them, our happiness in life. "The union has in it all that I 
mark by the word necessity ; a sequence constant, immediate, 
and inevitable.'" [Anal. vol. i. p. 366]. I cannot, therefore, 
have the idea of the present, without having the idea of its 
consequent, the future : I cannot think of the events passing 
before me to-day, without thinking of those which will follow 
to-morrow. And, when I think of these, owing to an irre- 
sistible*compulsion put upon me by Association, I am said to 
believe in them. Thus there is found to be nothirg special 
in that form of Belief called Anticipation of the Future from 
the Past ; it, like every other case of Belief in Events or 
Existences, rests on Indissoluble Associatiou. When we be- 
lieve that the sun will rise to-morrow, or that a stone just 
hurled will fall to the ground, we perform, or rather undergo 
(as Mill might prefer to put it), the same mental process, as 
when we infer the distance of objects from the manner in 
which the eye or ear is affected by certain modifications of 
light or sound, or when an association otherwise separable by 
sensations and will becomes for the nonce indissoluble during 
the absence of these sensations, and the abeyance of the will, 
as in dreams, or during the temporary belief in ghosts which 
takes possession of a child in the dark. It remains to be 



AS SEX T TO PRUPOSITIOXS. 103 

seen whether anything' other than Ideas and Association can 
be found to form the basis of the second great branch of 
Belief, namely, that in the Truth of Propositions, or Judg- 
ment. And here we shall be able to resume company 
with Hartley, who devotes several pages to this head of 
Belief, though under it he includes a variety of matters, which 
Mill more philosophically treats as cases of Belief in events. 

The Belief in the Truth of Propositions is, in the opinion 
of James Mill, Belief in Ferial Truths merely. " Propositions 
consisting of general names are all merely verbal ; and the 
belief is nothing more than the recognition of the coincidence, 
entire or partial, of two general names " [Anal. vol. i. p. 392]. 
But what the recognition of a coincidence is has already been 
seen. Having an idea, or cluster of ideas, and then having 
that idea or cluster of ideas again, is itself neither more nor 
less than the recognition of their identity. " To have two 
clusters of ideas, to know that they are two, and to believe 
that they are two, this is nothing more than three expressions 
for the same thing. To know that two clusters are two 

clusters, and to know that they are the same 

is the same thing with having them " [vol. i. p. 433]. 

When we express our assent to the proposition that " an oak 
is a tree/' or that " all oaks are trees/' we recognize a partial 
coincidence between the two general names " oak " and 
"tree." When we say that we believe that "all men are 
rational animals," there is a recognition of entire coincidence 
between the general name " man " and the general name 
"rational animal." In the latter proposition, the first of the 
two names calls up the complex idea of man, — this is a case of 
ordinary association, — the second name calls up the complex 
idea of '* rational animal," — this is another case of ordinary 
association. The next and only remaining step in the process 
of Belief is that wherein the two successive ideas are recognized 



104 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

as identical in the mere fact of their succession to the same 
mind. In assenting to a proposition of the former kind, the 
process is a little less simple, but still generically the same. 
The association of the two general names with the two com- 
plex ideas is of course the same : the difference consists 
merely in the fact that only a part instead of the whole of the 
complex idea called up by the Predicate is recognized as iden- 
tical with the whole of the complex idea called up by the 
Subject. One part of the first complex idea is recognized as 
being the same as, the other part as being distinct from, the 
whole of the second cluster, in one and the same event, 
namely their succession to the same mind. 

After this exposition of the nature of assent to propositions, 
we shall not be surprised to find that Mill's account of the 
syllogizing process — on which his successors have expended so 
much pains, and evolved so elaborate and various theories — 
was summary in the extreme. As has already been noticed, 
he believes that the credit given to the conclusion of a syllogism 
is given in no other way, and for no other reason, than the 
credit given to a proposition. The association is mediate in- 
stead of direct ; but it is none the less association of ideas 
called up by names on which the belief is grounded. To infer 
that, because statesmen are men, and men are mortal, therefore 
statesmen are mortal, is simply to recognize the identity of a 
part of the complex idea suggested by the name " man/' a 
part (only a smaller part) of the complex idea suggested by 
the name " mortal/' and the whole of the complex idea sug- 
gested by the name " statesmen ; " and to recognize this 
identity is the same thing, under another name, as having the 
ideas " man," " mortal/' " statesman/' in succession. 

Hartley's doctrine of Assent to Propositions is somewhat 
different from that of Mill, and even more crude. Just as 
words have complex ideas attached to them, so sentences, 



BELIEF— RATIONAL AND PRACTICAL. 105 

being composed of words, have decomplex ideas attached to 
them. Such a decomplex idea often, and notably in the case 
of propositions, contains other elements than the complex ideas 
suggested by the separate words composing the sentence : that 
is, the mere combination of these complex ideas is the cause of 
an additional complex idea — that, namely, of assent or dissent — 
beinir added to them. 8 The association is analogous to chemical 
composition, where two elements when mixed together produce 
a substance possessing additional properties to those possessed 
by either of them in their original and independent state. 
u And/'' he adds, " it would be of the greatest use, both in the 
sciences, and in common life, thoroughly to analyze this matter, 
to show in what manner, and by what steps, i.e. by what im- 
pressions and associations, our assent and dissent, both in 
scientific and moral subjects, is formed." [Observ. on Man, 
vol. i. p. 79] . Later on in the work he devotes several pages 
[vol. i. pp. 324 — 367] to the consideration of the subjects 
sketched out above, and makes some attempt of a not very 
systematic kind to furnish the sort of analysis indicated. The 
assent which is capable of being accorded to propositions may, 
in Hartley's view, be either rational or practical. It is prac- 
tical, when made the basis of action. In this sense, it may be 
remarked, according to some later exponents of the Asso- 
ciation theory (such as Professor Bain) all belief is practical; 
indeed, is only determined to be belief by the sole criterion of 
its sufficiency to support and give birth to action. Hartley 
says that some propositions, such as those of mathematics, 
admit only of a rational assent ; whereas others receive only 
the practical, without the rational. It will be, perhaps, 
thought more true to say that every proposition, of whatever 

8 In his Latin Treatise, Conjectures Qucedam de Sensu, Motu, et 
Idearum Generatione" he lays down boldly that " Assent and Dissent 
are nothing but decomplex ideas excited by propositions." 



106 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

kind, whether scientific, religions, or moral, admits of an assent 
or dissent both rational and practical ; and that, where it ad- 
mits of the one, it must necessarily admit of the other. The 
mathematical axiom that " things which are equal to the same 
thing are equal to one another/' or that a two straight lines 
cannot enclose a space," is quite as much practically believed, 
that is, acted upon, by any one who chooses between two 
diverging roads in a country walk, as the proposition that 
" benevolence is lovely, and selfishness odious " is practically 
believed by the philanthropist in doing an act of charity. 
One element or side of the assent may be thrown into the 
shade by the other, the practical by the rational, or the internal 
by the external : but every practical assent must rest ulti- 
mately, however unconscious or unquestioning the believer may 
be, on a foundation of rational assent; and every rational assent, 
or body of beliefs, or creed, must necessarily express itself in 
action, except w 7 here there are counterbalancing or restraining 
influences which deflect it from the straight line of m< tion 
which it would, of its own accord, follow. In this case the 
practical assent is given none the less, but other practical 
assents, resulting from other rational assents, work with it. 

Hartley's formal definition of rational assent, with which 
only of course we are at present concerned, is somewhat per- 
plexing. " Rational assent to any proposition is a 

readiness to affirm it to be true, proceeding from a close asso- 
ciation of the ideas suggested by the proposition, w T ith the 
idea, or internal feeling, belonging to the word truth ; or of 
the terms of the proposition with the word truth. " \_Olsen\ 
on Man, vol. i, p. 324]. This is unsatisfactory enough: nor 
are we much helped when he explains why he calls such assent 
rational, and not verbal, as (like Mill) he would himself have 
apparently proposed to call it. He does so because " every 
person supposes himself always to have sufficient reason for 



BELIEF IN AXIOMS. 107 

such readiness to affirm or deny." Judging from these words 
alone, something more than association would appear to be 
suggested by Hartley himself in order to constitute belief in 
propositions. Nobody can suppose himself to have a reason 
for the association of two ideas. They are, or have become, 
associated; — and that is all that can be said about them. 

It will be seen that Mill explains Assent to Propositions on 
his own theory of the equivalence of Recognition of the Identity 
of two ideas to the mere succession to one mind of the ideas 
recognized as identical. Hartley had evolved no such theory 
to fall back upon ; and, in consequence, is reduced to the 
necessity of committing himself to the doctrine that the ideas 
conveyed by the terms of a proposition, when combined together, 
propagate or strike out another idea w T hich is not in any of the 
former ideas taken singly. Both Mill and Hartley repudiate 
necessity in propositions, and consider so-called axioms and 
necessary truths to be, in fact, merely verbal. Here again, 
however, there is a difference discernible in the two views. 
Hartley appears, unlike Mill, to mix up with his association 
theory of assent to verbal propositions, such as axioms, what 
is known as the experiential theory of their origin. Thus 
though he speaks of such propositions as "2+2=4" being 
merely verbal, he also talks of " the entire coincidence of the 
visible or tangible idea of twice two with that ot four, as im- 
pressed upon the mind by various objects/ , and says: — "we 
see everywhere that twice two and four are only different names 
for the same impression." 

There is no more difficulty in the complicated than in the 
simple cases of assent to mathematical propositions. The co- 
incidence of ideas is the basis, in the latter; the coincidence 
of ideas and terms together, or of terms alone, in the former. 
But rational assent to propositions, it lxay be said, is often 
based on memory, authority, &c. Here, says Hartley with 



ioS HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

James Mill, the working* of the association-process is only 
thrown a step further back. The memory or authority, on 
which we rely itself achieved its credit on the strength of 
association. 

Just as in analyzing rational assent, Hartley feels himself 
bound to discover the presence of a new factor, after the com- 
bination of the complex ideas suggested by the terms of a 
proposition, — namely the idea or "internal feeling " of truth ; 
so also he resorts to an equally forced and awkward ex- 
planation of practical assent, in holding, that the decomplex 
idea, together with the " internal feeling " of truth called into 
being by it, somehow tack on to themselves another complex 
idea — that of utility — before practical assent (in the large 
majority of cases, at least) is granted. To this extent, he 
allows that a practical assent even to mathematical pro- 
positions is possible. 

Under the heading of Assent to the Truth of Propositions, 
Hartley, as we have before remarked, includes Belief in the 
Reality of Events, apparently on the ground that every event 
may be expressed as a verbal proposition. It would have 
saved a great deal of confusion, if both Mill and Hartley 
(instead of devoting themselves, the one almost exclusively 
to the verbal side of propositions, and the other to the ex- 
perience and inferences from particulars, on which these 
propositions are based) had recognized the double point of 
view from which every belief of whatever kind may be re- 
garded, first, as a belief in an event, fact, or existence ; 
secondly, as a belief in the identity of the terms of the pro- 
position stating it. In the proposition, for example, "all 
men are animals/' it is the ignoring of the fact underlying 
the verbal statement which makes its explanation so ap- 
parently easy. If Hartley and Mill (for, in this case, Mill 
shares in the peculiar error of his predecessor) had gone on to 



LANGUAGE AS AFFECTING BELIEF. 109 

treat of the belief in the fact, they would have dived deeper 
into the experiential basis of knowledge (symbolized hy pro- 
positions) afterwards so elaborately discussed by modern 
philosophers, such as J. S. Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
and might have discovered that the proposition is just as 
much the epitomized result of a previous process, and the 
counterpart of a belief in events or existences based on in- 
ference, as the Syllogism (which James Mill also treated as 
purely verbal) is the epitomized result of a series of inferences 
from particular phenomena. Mill would further have seen 
that, conversely, the forms of Belief in real existences, which 
he treats with such systematic and pains-taking analysis, 
may be expressed and summarized in verbal propositions, — 
indeed in the latter part of his chapter on Belief in Verbal 
Propositions, he seems half-conscious of this, — and that 
Belief may be treated from two sides, but cannot, philo- 
sophically, be split up into two classes, one of which is to be 
called verbal, and the other real. 

Hartley shows, in a variety of ways, what importance he 
attaches to the particular terms in which propositions are made 
to represent events or facts. " Terms or words are absolutely 
necessary to the art of reasoning," \_Ohserv. on Man, vol. i. 
p. 330]. A sceptic is merely a man who varies from the 
generality of his fellows " in the application of a certain set 
of words, viz. truth, certainty, assent, dissent." This last 
very curious expression shows the hold which the " verbal '* 
theory had obtained over his mind ; — an influence which is 
also reflected in the long disquisitions on Language in which 
he is perpetually indulging, and in the frequent claims which 
he puts forward (in this very connexion, amongst others) for 
a philosophical language, to fix the ideas to be associated with 
words on clear and intelligible principles. We shall see that 
this influence was by no means without its effect even on 



no HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

James Mill, though his error was usually in the opposite 
direction, when we find him treating some of the most 
obscure and intricate intellectual processes and faculties, 
and metaphysical conceptions; as merely " names requiring 
explanation." 

And not only would Hartley like to see all beliefs in events 
and natural laws reduced to the recognition of identity in 
terms, but he would go further, and have them expressed 
algebraically. Algebra, he says in an earlier part of his work, 
is only a superior kind of language, and language an inferior 
kind of algebra : and in accordance with this view, he here 
devotes a section of his work to the algebraical expression of 
the laws of evidence, and brings in the theories of De Moivre 
and others to illustrate his views. 9 He has some interesting 
remarks (adopted by Bentham and J. S. Mill) on the dis- 
tinction between a chain of dependent, and a centre of cor- 
roborative or independent evidence, the one becoming weaker 
as the number of links or media are increased, the other 
gaining strength witfy, the multiplication of independent 
sources of evidence contributing their several streams to the 
same destination. Valuable hints are also thrown out on 
Induction, Analogy, and Hypothesis, which have long since 
been developed into exhaustive theories in the hands of recent 
philosophers. These we may have to notice hereafter. 

9 " It appears not impossible," he says on p. 352 of vol. i., " that future 
generations should put all kinds of evidences, and inquiries, into mathe- 
matical forms, and, as it were, reduce Aristotle's 10 Categories, and Bishop 
Wilkins's 40 Summa Genera, to the head of quantity alone." On Bishop 
"Wilkins, and his Philosophical Language, vid. sup. 



Ill 



CHAPTER VI. 

LEADING METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTIONS, POEMS, AND RELATIONS, 
AS ACCOUNTED FOR ON THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION. 
SAMENESS SIMILARITY SUCCESSION CAUSALITY EXTEN- 
SION MOTION QUANTITY QUALITY ANALOGY INDUC- 
TION. 

This part of his subject James Mill calls " the explaining of 
certain marks or names." The title is peculiar — (" it is almost/'' 
says J. S. Mill, in the Anal, vol. ii. p. 2, note, " as if a treatise 
on chemistry were described as an explanation of the names 
air, water, potass, sulphuric acid, &c") — and quite in ac- 
cordance with the general tenor of his views. Equally 
characteristic is his method of treating the above-mentioned 
metaphysical conceptions. They are all, from his standpoint, 
merely abstract relative terms. Now all abstract ideas are, 
as we have seen, merely concretes with the connotation 
dropped. Mill therefore first of all sets to work to unravel 
the different concrete pairs of related terms, and then shows 
how, in this, as in other cases, the corresponding abstractions 
are formed from them. 

In analyzing relative terms Mill (following his usual plan) 
begins with the most simple and ordinary instances. What, 
he asks, is implied in the relations, Father-Son, Husband- 
\Vife, Light-Dark, Greater-Less, Convex-Concave, Trustee- 
Cestui que Trust, &c. (where the related ideas are differently 
named) ; or again in the relations, Equal- Equal, Like- Like, 



ii2 EAR TLE Y A ND J A MES MILL. 

Sister-Sister, Friend-Friend, &c. (where the related ideas bear 
the same name) ? The peculiarity of such sets of names as 
the above is that they always exist in pairs. " There is no 
relative without its correlate, either actual or implied" — 
implied often in modern languages, but usually expressed in 
the ancient. 1 Now we give names in pairs for no other 
reason than because the things corresponding to the names 
are found in pairs. We associate in name what we frequently 
perceive associated in fact : and we give pairs of names to 
some pairs of things rather than to others on grounds of con- 
venience : in this, as in other cases, language abbreviates 
where it is most useful and important to do so. Now we can 
only name in pairs what enters into our minds either as 
sensation or idea. Ideas are, as has been shown, either Simple 
or Complex; and Complex Ideas are either Sensible or Men- 
tal. Simple Sensations and Simple Ideas we name in pairs, 
" (1) when we take them into simultaneous view as such and 
such, (2) when we take them into simultaneous view as ante- 
cedent and consequent." [Anal. vol. ii. p. 8.] 

In the former of these two cases, we name sensations or 
ideas as like or unlike one another : (for the relations Same- 
Same, Different-Different, are not, according to Mill, philo- 
sophically or accurately named, the former, because no two 
sensations can be the same as, but only very like, one another, 
the latter, because every two sensations are different from one 
another to some extent). Now — as has often been noticed 
before — in saying that two sensations are like or unlike, we 
merely imply that these sensations have occurred in succession 
to the same mind. To have two sensations following one 
another is to be conscious of a change from one to the other; 
and to be conscious of a change is sensation and nothing else. 

1 E.g. " a gift to my son," translated into Latin, would be "dono dedit 
pater filio," &c. 



SEQ UENCES OF SENS A TIONS A ND IDEA S. 1 1 3 

Without such consciousness, the mental life would be as non- 
existent as if there were no sensation at all. A sentient being 1 
is a being" with sensations in a continual state of flux, as the 
old philosophers said : and being conscious of the flux is 
nothing more than being subject to it. To have the sensations, 
red, green, yellow, in succession, is to recognize that each of 
the sensations after red is a new sensation. Similarly, to 
have a sensation and an idea in succession is to know them 
severally, that is, to distinguish them. Now, if after ex- 
periencing the above sequence of colour-sensations, I have the 
sensation of red a second time, it immediately calls up by 
means of association the idea of the previous sensation of red : 
I therefore have the sensation of red and the idea of red in 
succession ; to have them in succession is to recognize their 
difference, whether slight or considerable. In this case the 
difference is recognized as slight : and slight difference is all 
that is meant by similarity. To have similar or different 
sensations is, therefore, to know them as slightly or widely 
different from one another. The same kind of reasoning will 
equally apply to consecutive ideas of sensations, or simple 
ideas. And in applying relative names to such sequences, 
(whether of two sensations, of a sensation and an idea, or of 
two ideas), there is nothing more involved than in the ap- 
plication of the absolute names, red, green, yellow, &c. — 
nothing, that is, beyond " having the sensations, having 
the ideas, and making marks for them." [Anal. vol. ii. 
p. 17.1 

We are also in the habit of marking successive simple sen- 
sations and simple ideas as following one another, or standing 
to one another in the relation of antecedent and consequent. 
The following mental train takes place when a sensation A 
is recognized as the antecedent to a sensation 13. First, sen- 
sation A, next sensation B, then, thirdly and necessarily, the 

I 



1 14 II A RTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

idea of sensation A called up by sensation B, through asso- 
ciation in a certain manner : last comes Naming. When 
three sensations A, B, C, follow one another in succession, the 
process is (1) sensation A, (2) sensation B, (3) idea of sen- 
sation A called up by sensation B, (4) sensation C, (5) idea of 
sensation B called up by sensation C, (6) idea of sensation A 
called up by idea of sensation B. But here the idea of sen- 
sation A is not called up immediately by the sensation C. 
Consequently the sensation A is not recognized as antecedent 
to the sensation C. So we arrive at the following proposition 
[Anal. vol. ii. p. 21] : " when two sensations in a train are 
such that, if one exists, it has the idea of the other along with 
it, by its immediate exciting poiver, and not through any inter- 
mediate idea, the sensation, the idea of which is thus excited, 
is called the antecedent, the sensation which thus excites that 
idea is called the consequent/'' 

Next as to the relations of complex ideas ; and first as to 
Sensible Complex ideas, or the ideas of external objects. 
What is implied in naming these in pairs ? The modes in 
which we so name them are divided by Mill into four classes, 
according as we regard the members of such pairs, (1) as 
having an order in space, or (2) as having an order in time, 
(3) as agreeing or disagreeing in quantity, (4) as agreeing or 
disagreeing in quality. Now just as by dropping the con- 
notations of the related pairs of simple sensations and ideas, 
we have arrived at the abstract relations Similarity, and Ante- 
cedence and Consequence, so by first finding the concrete re- 
lated pairs proper to the above four classes, and then dropping 
the connotations, we shall arrive at the abstract relatives, 
[Forms or Categories they would be called in other systems], 
Position [and Extension], Causality, Quantity, and Quality. 

With regard to Mental Complex Ideas, we may name con- 
crete pairs of relatives and correlates, according as we regard 



SIMILARITY. 115 



the members of such pairs (1) as consisting of the same or 
different simple ideas (£) as standing to one another in the 
relation of antecedent and consequent. 

Taking the three classes, therefore, of sensations and ideas 
above enumerated, and the Relative Terms proper to them, it 
will be found that we have to show how the following 
Abstract Relations are established, — Similarity (on which we 
have already said something), Causality, Extension [Position], 
Quantity, Quality [Homogeneity]. We propose to give 
Mill's account of these in the above order: with Quantity we 
may conveniently investigate his theory of Numbers, and 
Equality ; while in considering Extension and Position we 
may also consider his conception of Space as a privative term 
(in contradistinction to Time, which most philosophers rank 
with it as analogous), as well as his views on the subject of 
Motion. Afterwards we may point out in their proper place 
some observations of Hartley on Similarity and Causality, 
together with their respective cognate ideas, Analogy and 
Induction. 

The process involved in calling two sensations like one 
another has been explained. Now the abstract term Simi- 
larity or Likeness must, like any other abstract term, note a 
quality, and connote the objects possessing that quality. It 
is easy to see what is connoted by the abstract term in this 
case : it is the two sensations, or the two series of sensations, 2 
compared. What is noted is that inseparable, though not 
indistinguishable, part of the entire process, which consists in 
comparing the two as like or unlike. Leave out the con- 
noted part of the process, and retain the notative, and we get 
Similarity. 

2 Because the series " red, red," can be distinguished from the series 
" red, green, " as much as the single sensation "red" from the single 
sensation " green," and in exactly the same way. 

I % 



n6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

Next, as to Causality. Here too we must first discover trie 
nature of the concrete related pairs, before we can determine 
that of the abstract relation. Now it is a cardinal tenet of 
Mill's system that, in his own words, "all our sensations 

are derived from objects And, reciprocally, all our 

knowledge of objects is the sensations themselves 

Therefore a knowledge of the successive order of objects is a 
knowledge of the successive order of our sensations." [Anal. 
vol. ii. p. 37]. But it has already been shown that having 
two sensations or ideas successively is the same thing as 
knowing them to be successive; or rather the latter is an 
inseparable and inextricable element in the whole series of 
sensations or ideas contemplated as successive. This ele- 
ment, which, though never isolated in fact, can be isolated in 
thought, is that which is noted by the related pair, Ante- 
cedent - Consequent : the rest of the process, that is, the 
having the two sensations or ideas, (so far as the having them 
can be distinguished from the recognition of their successive- 
ness), together with the ideas or sensations themselves, is 
what is connoted. Drop the connotation, and we have Suc- 
cessiveness, or Priority and Posteriority (when taken together). 
It is to be observed that Priority or Posteriority alone will 
not suffice, because either has a special connotation of its 
own, — it connotes the other, — just as a concrete object called 
prior connotes an object posterior, and vice versa. In the 
case of single- worded, as opposed to double- worded pairs of 
related terms, the compound names (such as Likeness-Like- 
ness, Equality-Equality, Friendship-Friendship) would also 
strictly be required in order to express the corresponding 
abstract relations, and it is only because their use would 
involve a tiresome reduplication that they are dispensed with, 
and the single name used instead. 

When we pair together two successive sensations or ideas, 



CAUSALITY. 117 



and contemplate the former as immediately, as well as con- 
stantly, preceding the latter, we use the related terms Cause- 
Effect, and not merely Antecedent-Consequent. In express- 
ing* the latter relation, we often find it convenient to miss or 
slur over the intervening links, when they are not (as often 
happens) unknown j but in determining a causal relation, we 
seek to find the immediate antecedent, and seek so pertina- 
ciously that (according to Mill) we often insist on inserting 
between the real Cause and the real Effect an imaginary 
Cause of our own devising, such as Power, &c, in the vain 
endeavour to bring ourselves, so to speak, nearer to both the 
one and the other of the two extremities of the chain of 
succession. 

As instances of Antecedent and Consequent, Mill very 
curiously classes such pairs of related ideas as Doctor-Patient, 
Father-Son, &c, any of which, when taken together, he con- 
tends, makes up a complex idea consisting of a long chain of 
ideas of which Doctor or Father, &c, is the " terminus a cpio" 
and Patient or Son, &c, the "terminus ad quern" Two 
brothers, or Brother-Brother, mark a still more complex idea, 
being equivalent to a train of ideas taken twice over, the 
prior extremity the Father being the same in the two cases, the 
latter extremity different. There are a large variety of paired 
names, which represent more or less long trains of ideas 
between, and including, the two extremities noted by them. 
In the relation First-Last, the extremities are as far as pos- 
sible distant from one another : in Father-Son, Owner-Pro- 
perty, Guardian-AVard, &c, they are still very distant : in 
Prior-Posterior, they may be any distance from one another. 
But the peculiarity of Cause-Effect is that the extremi- 
ties are in juxtaposition. The chain therefore consists of 
the extremities only, and there is either no link between 
them, or, if so, its existence is unknown. This pair there- 



nS HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



fore of concrete interrelated terms notes immediate (and 
constant) juxtaposition in the way of succession, of two sen- 
sations or ideas, or of a sensation and idea, and it connotes 
those sensations or ideas which are contemplated as thus 
immediately (and constantly) successive. Leave out the 
connotation, and we get that which is represented by the 
abstract relative compound term, Causingness (or Causa- 
tiveness)-Causedness, or the corresponding single name, 
Causality or Causation. 

As we apply the terms Antecedent-Consequent, Cause- 
Effect to those ideas of clusters of sensations called external 
objects ; so also do we apply them to those clusters of ideas in 
the formation of which the mind takes a more active share : 
" thus we say that Evidence is the cause of Belief, or Vil- 
lainy of Indignation." [Anal. vol. ii. 67]. Thoughts, as 
well as things, may be regarded as standing to one another in 
an order of succession, or in a causal relation. For in any 
train of ideas — and, in Mill's opinion, there cannot be more 
than one train present at the same time to the same individual 
— thoughts succeed one another ; — each thought is therefore, 
at all events, the proximate antecedent to the rest. But can 
we say that it is also the constant antecedent — for constant 
as well as proximate antecedence is necessary to causation — 
in face of the fact that different minds have different series of 
ideas, notwithstanding that the starting-point may be the 
same? We can, answers Mill, for this reason. Our trains 
of feelings do not consist only of ideas, but of sensations also ; 
and those sensations are impressed by surrounding objects 
and contemporary events, the number and different orders 
and relations of which are infinite, and independent of our 
volition in the great majority of cases. This will be sufficient 
to account for the variety of trains starting from the same 
idea in different minds. The degree of force possessed by the 



POSITION AND EXTENSION. 119 

initial idea in suggesting its. particular successor may still, 
for all we know, be constant ; but it so happens that the 
results are various, because other factors and influences unite 
with that idea to moderate its operation. Of these factors 
James Mill has mentioned sensations alone, but he might just 
as well have added ideas, siuce, as J. S. Mill points out, the 
mind is never completely occupied by a single idea ; and also 
the constitution, formed habits, and temporary state of the 
mind to which the series is present. But these qualifications, 
though they would have left intact the statement that one 
antecedent idea, if unmodified hy other circumstances, must 
inevitably produce the same consequent idea in every mind — 
would have very much weakened, indeed utterly destroyed, 
the value of the proposition for purposes of psychological 
analysis. It is all very well to tell a marksman that, if no 
other laws were to act in company with the First Law of 
Motion, his arrow would inevitably hit the bull's-eye. The 
proposition is true, but trivial. So here. 

Thus much, then, on the causal relation between successive 
thoughts. The relation called Position, and the cognate rela- 
tion of Extension, next demand attention. As before, the 
related concrete terms must be determined before the relation. 
Examples of such related terms are naturally among the 
most familiar to us of any — High-Low, Right-Left, North- 
South, Behind-Before, &c. These cannot be defined except 
in terms involving the thing to be defined. But that which 
cannot be defined so as to avoid a circle may, notwith 
standing, often be conveniently described in other ways, for 
the purpose of bringing its meaning home to us with clear- 
ness. 

The Synchronous differs from the Successive Order, — Space 
from Time, — in one very important respect. The latter is 
always, as it were, in one direction ; and when a series of sue- 



120 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

cessive events is represented figuratively in terms of space, no 
other symbol can be used but that of a line : whereas objects 
in synchronous order can stand to one another in several 
other relations than that of Lineness or Linth. 3 But as being 1 
in a line with one another is the simplest of all spatial rela- 
tions between objects, let us examine what this is a little 
more closely. If we take a single particle of matter as centre, 
and attach to it another particle, we get the most elementary 
case of synchronous order. Add to these successive particles 
along the direction of the same radius, and we still have the 
same relation between the various component particles of the 
line thus formed, which will be of greater or less length, 
according to the number of the particles. Now the name of 
this supposed physical line notes, according to Mill, the par- 
ticles of which it is composed, and connotes the direction. On 
taking away the connotation, we get the abstract relation, for 
which some such name as Lineness is required. If we then 
attach to the imaginary central particle other particles not 
only along the direction of one radius, but along those of 
every possible radius, an analogous account may be given of 
the abstract relations of Figure and Bulk. The Position of 
any given particle will be its order in relation to the central 
and every other particle in the mass. 

It remains to inquire, what are the sensations which give 
the cognition of sjaichronous order. They are, according to 
Mill, tactual and muscular. And in the very complex idea of 

3 These are the terms that Mill coins, to avoid, as he says, the ambi- 
guity of the double use of the word Line, first to represent a concrete and 
physical, secondly, an abstract or mathematical line. It is obvious that 
he is here confusing two very different things, — an abstraction and an 
ideal, the former representing a quality of which concrete objects of a 
class are all more or less in possession, the latter a limit to which they 
more or less nearly approach. This confusion vitiates Mill's whole 
theory of spatial relations. 



SPACE. 121 



muscular resistance is included at least this much : — the will 
to move the muscles, the exertion of that will, and certain 
sensations in those muscles, in virtue of which we call an 
object hard or soft, resisting or non-resisting. These, then, 
are the sensations capable of being derived by a sentient being 
from any particle of matter. Now let us take our central 
particle again, and the radius of which that particle forms 
one extremity ; and let us suppose a person endowed only 
with tactual and muscular sensibility (in order to exclude 
foreign and non-essential conditions) to be brought in contact 
with the aggregate of particles composing the line in ques- 
tion. Then such a person, just as he would have two different 
states of feeling according as the finger touching the line was 
still or in motion, or according as the motion of his finger 
was slow or swift, so would he have two different states of 
feeling, according as the finger moved along the whole line or 
only along half of it. And thus it is that " after certain 
repetitions of particular tactual sensations, and particular 
muscular sensations, received in a certain order, I give to 
the combined ideas of them this name Line. But when I have 
got my idea of a line, I have also got my idea of extension. 
For what is extension, but lines in every direction ?" [Anal. 
vol. ii. p. 34]. The explanation of Plane Surface is analogous. 

It is to be remembered that we never perceive objects 
except in space, that is, except in the synchronous order. 
Position therefore becomes so inseparably associated with the 
idea of any object, that belief in the necessity of the relation 
of space has thereby, and thereby only, according to Mill, 
been engendered. It will be convenient now to examine the 
supposed necessity, and generally the nature of that which we 
call space. 

Space is held by Mill to be not an abstract relative, but an 
abstract privative term. By " privative " terms Mill really 



122 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

means negative: (the term ee privative " being properly limited 
to indicate the absence of some element or quality usually 
present in an object and necessary to its completeness as such 
object) ; and in the ensuing exposition, to avoid misunder- 
standing, we shall use the term u negative.''' 

In the idea of an object, (such as Light, Sound, Know- 
ledge) is included the idea of its existence, or the belief that a 
sentient organism existing at such and such a time and place 
would have certain sensations or ideas. In using the corre- 
sponding negative terms (Darkness, Silence, Ignorance) we 
couple with the idea of the object the idea that such an 
organism would not have those sensations or ideas at any 
time or place, or at all events at the time and place to which 
we refer the term. Now the latter idea, — its association with 
the former being, so to speak, strained and violent, — is forced 
into a prominence which overshadows it ; whereas, in making 
use of the corresponding positive terms, we find that the idea 
of the object so completely absorbs the accompanying idea of 
its existence, that we should never, except on careful analysis, 
notice that the former idea co-exists with the latter at all. 
The comparatively small number of negative terms in a 
language is accounted for,- in the same way as the com- 
parative paucity of relative terms, by reference to the princi- 
ples of convenience which led men to name only what was 
most important to name, — (though some languages, the ancient 
Greek for instance, are richer in negative terms than others). 

From the above distinction between Presence- affirming and 
Absence-affirming Names, Mill devises a simple explanation 
of those bugbears of the ancient, to whom we may add some 
modern, philosophers, Being, Nothing, &c. From the notion 
that a name must represent some positive existence, "to 
firjhev " and the like, have often been elevated to the rank of 
Substances and Entities of much mysterious importance. It 



SPACE. 12 



is true that even Nothing must name something ; but what 
it names is the idea of Everything" — all possible objects — 
coupled with the idea of their non-existence. 4 

On these principles Mill proceeds to expound the somewhat 
more complex negative idea of Emptiness, which is the idea 
of Fulness together with the idea of its absence. But the idea 
of the absence of Fulness Mill shows, by a curious process of 
reasoning, to be equivalent to the abstract name corresponding 
to " solid extended body " or "bulk." For the ideas of linear, 
superficial, and solid extension are in each case the ideas of 
linear, superficial, and solid surfaces or bodies, with their con- 
notation (which in each case is .Resistance) dropped. But in 
the last case of " bulk " or " solid extended body," we obtain a 
strange result ; — we seem, in dropping the connotation of the 
idea Resistance, to drop everything that constitutes the idea. 
This, however, is not so : we have remaining the place for 
Bulk, namely Position, or Space with a limitation. If we 
drop the connotation of in finitely extended solid bodies, we get 
the abstract term Infinite Spjace. 

It will be seen from the above account that, in defining such 
notions as Nothing, Space, &c, Mill seems to hesitate whether 
he shall call them abstract names derived from concretes in 
the ordinary way, or negative ideas, equivalent to the ideas of 
the corresponding positive terms coupled with the idea of 
their absence. It cannot clearly be gathered from his expo- 
sition, whether he regards Space as the abstract term corre- 
sponding to all concrete extended objects, or, like Emptiness, 

4 J. S. Mill here points out the insufficiency of this explanation, and 
says (what is unquestionably true) that negative terras do signify some- 
thing positive : they signify a state of consciousness : Silence, for example, 
a state of consciousnes, when there is no sound affecting the organs of 
hearing, and Kothing a state of consciousness when we are not affected 
by sensations from any object. 



i2 4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

to be the negative of an idea of infinitely extended bnlk. To 
have said, with J. S. Mill, that it is the ideal negative of an 
ideal positive would have been the simpler and truer way out 
of the difficulty : but he was precluded from taking this course 
by his peculiar and rather confused views on the subject of 
abstract terms. 

Mill concludes his observations on Space by a neat summary 
of the various indissoluble associations which combine to en- 
gender and form our ideas of that abstraction. " First of all 
with the idea of every object, the idea of position or place is 
indissolubly united. Secondly, with the idea of position or 
place, the idea of extension is indissolubly united. Thirdly, 
with the idea of extension the idea of infinity is indissolubly 
united. 5 Fourthly, by the unfortunate ambiguity of the 
Copula " [see above, ch. iii.] " the idea of existence is indisso- 
lubly united with Space, as with other abstract terms." And 
all these elements, the ideas of Position, Extension, Infinity, 
and Existence, " forced into combination, by irresistible 
association, constitute the idea of Space." \_Anal. vol. ii. 
pp. 114, 115]. 

Intimately connected with Space is Motion. It is also, as 
appears on analysis, closely related to Time. It is the abstract 
name corresponding to the concrete " moving body," the idea 
of the body being dropped, and the idea of that which con- 
stitutes it a moving body being retained. Now the idea of a 
moving body comprises the following ideas (1) the idea of a 
line, whether straight or otherwise ; since every moving body 

5 In this way: we can never think of a finite line, surface, &c, without 
thinking of something beyond it, just as we can never think of an event 
without the idea of its antecedent or consequent being brought up, or of a 
number without thinking of one more beyond it. Infinity is, therefore, 
that state of consciousness in which the idea of something beyond is asso- 
ciated with the idea of any given finite line, surface, or bulk, &c, 



MOTION— TIME. 125 

must move in a line of some sort, — (i) the idea of a body, — 
(3) the idea of position (or extension in every direction, which 
taken abstractly, is Space), since the particles composing* the 
line have each of them position, — and (4), since the body must 
move successively from one position in the line to another, the 
idea of Succession, which in the abstract, coupled with the 
idea of infinity, is Time. 

Now how do we acquire our knowledge of moving bodies ? 
Not by the sense of sight, any more than we see figure or 
distance : that we imagine sight to be the source of our per- 
ception of moving bodies is due, as in the other cases, solely 
to association. We in fact derive the idea of moving bodies 
from the same kinds of sensation as those from which we 
derive our idea of extended objects, that is, from tactual and 
muscular sensations. If we touch a (physical) line at any one 
point we experience the sensations in virtue of which we call 
it tangible. If we move our finger along the line we have the 
sensations (tactual and muscular) and the ideas — (for in all 
cases of succession, the ideas of past sensations must co-exist 
with or rather follow immediately upon present sensations) — 
in virtue of which we call it extended. But these are the 
very sensations and ideas in virtue of which we call our finger 
a moving body. So that according as we regard the object 
or the finger principally, we have the idea Object Extended, 
or the idea Finger Moving. Drop the connotation, and 
the result is the abstract name Extension, on the one hand, 
and the abstract name Motion on the other, [that is the four 
elements mentioned above, excluding the second]. 

The term Quantity is, like the others, an abstract relative 
term. The concrete related terms corresponding to it are As- 
Great, So- Great, Quantus, Tantus. These are equivalent to 
Equal-Equal. Then what use have the former terms? If 
they had no use, says Mill, somewhat gloomily, it would not 



126 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

be surprising, " considering by whom languages have been 
made." But in the present case there is a use. In the pair 
of related terms Equal-Equal, either may be taken as the 
standard of the other. But of the other pair, Quantus must 
always stand for the measure of Tantus. Quantitas then, if it 
had kept its original meaning, would (dropping the conno- 
tation of Quantus, which has reference to some specific body 
taken as a standard) involve the idea of some amount of body 
being taken as the standard of some other body ; and it would 
thus connote Tantitas, just as Priority connotes Posteriority. 
But the idea so implied has been dropped, and there has been 
substituted for it the idea of some amount of body being taken 
as the standard of all other bodies ; or rather, not even this 
has been permanently substituted, but Quantity has at length 
become an absolute, instead of a relative, abstract term ; and 
is used to represent any portion of extension, weight, number, 
heat, or anything, in fact, which can be measured by a part 
of itself. 

What do we mean when we use the terms More-Less, 
Longer-Shorter, &c. ? Such names may be applied to a variety 
of things, the simplest of which to take, for purposes of ex- 
planation, is Extension. Tactual and muscular sensations give 
us the line. We have certain sensations of this kind in ex- 
tending the arm a certain distance, and certain other sensations 
of this kind in extending it further. To have these different 
sensations in succession is to recognize their difference. Having 
recognized the difference, we find it important to name it. 
The pair of sensations are accordingly named in relation to one 
another Shorter-Longer. So of superficies, and bulk. When 
we apply the terms Part- Whole to objects, the idea of division 
is involved. The term Division when applied to a physical 
line comprises the ideas of the feelings of contraction of the 
muscles, and resistance after the contraction (the act of 



QUANTITY— NUMBER. 127 

dividing), the idea of the sight of the line before division (the 
antecedent of the act), and the idea of the sight of the line 
after division (the consequent of the act) . It is found con- 
venient to assign a pair of related terms to the antecedent and 
consequent above indicated ; the former we call the whole line, 
the latter the part of it. Whole and Part, of course, connote 
each other. Taken together they make a complex idea in- 
volving the three stages or elements of the above process. 
The same remarks hold good {mutatis mutandis) in the cases 
of Surface and Bulk. The division, of course, need not be 
physical in all cases : it may be imagined. 

Similar reasoning applies also to Weight, Heat, &c. et More 
heavy/'' " Less heavy/'' are names given to objects from which 
we have derived separate and successive sensations differing 
from one another by the more or less muscular resistance, in 
a particular direction, which they involve. "More or less 
muscular resistance " must, it would thus appear, be accepted 
as ultimate and unanalyzable. Whether any very important 
object is gained by stating the expression " more or less 
heavy" in other terms— for that is what the alleged analysis 
comes to — may very well be doubted. It is true, as J. S. 
Mill says, that this, like all other relations of quantity, exists 
only as it is felt, — and to this extent James Mill's descrip- 
tion, rather than explanation, is important — but it must be 
understood that differences of quantity are really irreducible, 
however much we may choose to translate them into different 
lanomaa>e. 

Mill's conception of Numbers proceeds faithfully upon the 
foregoing lines. He does not regard them as the names of 
objects, but as expressing and naming a process, — the process 
of addition, of putting one object to another. "One"''' is 
merely the name of this operation once performed; "two,'" of 
the operation once more performed; "three/'' of the operation 



128 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

once more performed, and so on. Mill seems to have been 
quite unconscious that, in this account, he was interpreting 
the thing by itself. It may be, however, that he meant the 
above as a description, not as an analysis. But, if so, he ought 
to have recognized, more emphatically than he has, the ulti- 
mate character of numbers ; and not have left his statement, 
that there is nothing mysterious about numbers, open to the 
construction — " there is nothing unanalyzable about num- 
bers." Of course, in one sense, there is nothing mysterious 
about them, any more than there is about Time, Space, an 
Idea, or a Sensation ; that is, we all know when we experience 
a sensation, or have an idea, and what is the difference between 
walking one mile and ten, and what is the distinction between 
missing a train and catching it. But in the only other sense 
which the word "mysterious" can bear in this connexion, 
namely, that of ultimateness, Numbers — judging from the 
fact that Mill himself is driven to define them in a circle — 
are "mysterious/' 

Numbers (Two, Three, Four, &c.) connote, says Mill, the 
objects to which these numerals are applied. When we drop 
the connotation we get the corresponding abstract names ; 
but, unfortunately, there is only one name for both the con- 
cretes and the abstracts. When we say, "two roses and 
three roses are five roses," we use the concrete names ; when 
we say, "two and three are five," we drop the connotation, 
and retain only the idea of the process ; and it would be more 
correct to say, " twoness and threeness are fiveness." It will 
strike the reader that in this, as in other instances, Mill has 
formed a wrong conception of abstract names. Numerals are 
always concrete names. 

The ordinal numbers (First, Second, Third, &c.) note a 
certain position, (if the objects, one of which is described in 
relation to the others, are in synchronous order), a certain 



QUALITY. 129 



link (if they are in the successive order) : they connote the ob- 
ject which has the position, or forms the link. The abstract 
term is derived in the ordinary way from the concrete. 

Quality is the last metaphysical category, or (to keep to 
Mill's own phraseology) abstract relative term, which has to 
be discussed. Qualities of objects are the names of the 
sensations which we derive from them — (the name "quality" 
notes this much) — and also of the unknown causes of these 
sensations — (and this is the connotation). We hioio about 
objects only the sensations, the effects, but we suppose a 
cause to produce these effects, owing to what some would call 
a mental instinct, others a u category," or law of thought, 
others, the actual independent existence of the Cause, but 
what Mill would ascribe to the working of association, and 
association only. 

There are, it is to be observed, two kinds of qualities, 
strictly speaking : there is that kind, in virtue of which we 
say that an object has a certain colour, form, consistency, &c. 
— the " sensible" quality : and there is also that kind, in 
respect of which we are not properly said to derive our sensa- 
tions from the objects themselves, which possess them, but 
from certain powers or properties in the objects. Thus, when 
we say that aqua regia dissolves gold, or has a gold-dissolving 
quality, the aqua regia is not itself the immediate antecedent 
of my sensation, but is one remove from it. The order 
is : Antecedent, aqua regia ; Consequent, gold dissolved by 
aqua regia: Second Consequent, myself perceiving the gold 
so dissolved. But, in the other sense of the word " quality," 
the object is not distinct from its qualities : beyond the 
qualities, it is nothing. 

Qualities, in this latter sense, are, as we have seen, the 
sensations which we derive from the objects, together with 
the association of their ideas with the idea of something as the 

K 



130 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

cause. This something turns out, on analysis, to be nothing 
but sensations regarded as antecedent to those experienced 
by us at any moment from an object. When I am affected 
by any object, say, through the sense of smell, I associate 
with the idea of such sensation the ideas of the sensations of 
colour, figure, size, weight, position, &c, which I imagine 
myself capable of deriving from the object, and presuppose 
their indissoluble union. And this is all that really takes 
place in the mind, according to Mill, during a supposed 
reference of sensations to an unknown cause, or to the object 
as their cause, however much we may be led by the perma- 
nent illusions of association to fancy otherwise. 

When we affirm that one object is Talis-Qualis another — 
of like nature with another — we mean that we derive from 
the two objects like sensations, — whether of one kind only 
(that is, in respect of one quality), or of several (that is, in 
respect of several qualities) , or of all those kinds which we are 
capable of deriving from the objects compared (that is, entirely, 
or in respect of all the qualities which constitute the object, 
excepting only the relation of dimension). 6 And what having 
like sensations is, has already been shown. 

Talis-Qualis, then, are names applied to objects in respect 
of every kind of sensation derivable from them, except that 
of dimension. And they differ from Like-Like in the one 
peculiarity, in which Tantus-Quantus differ from Equal- 
Equal, — that is, the objects denoted by Qualis and Quantus 
are always taken as standards, whereas in the case of the 
other two pairs either member is the measure of the other. 
The abstract name Quality is formed in exactly the same 
way as the abstract name Quantity. Qualitas, moreover, 
(like Quantitas, and all relative, as distinguished from 

6 For which a special pair of related terms, viz., Tantus. Quantus, has 
been invented. 



QUALITY. 131 



ordinary, abstract terms) did originally connote something*, 
namely Talitas, its abstract correlate : but from its having 
been from the beginning employed to express first one feature 
in an object which required to be specially marked, and then 
another, the term acquired in its rapid locomotion a migra- 
tory tendency, so to speak, which eventually enabled it to 
slip the bonds imposed by its original connexion with its 
correlate, and it thus became " the generical name of every- 
thing in objects, for which a separate notation is required." 
\_Anal. vol. ii. p. 60.] 

Mental, as well as sensible, complex ideas can, when put 
together in pairs, be contrasted as same or different, like 
or unlike, &c. We call them by these names, when the 
members of any such pair are composed of like or unlike 
simple ideas. 7 And what it is to call two simple ideas like or 
unlike, has been seen already. 

We may even style one complex idea greater than another, 
as when we say that the delicacy of Portia is greater than 
that of Antigone, or the statesmanship of Julius Ca3sar than 
that of Charlemagne. We make such quantitative compari- 
sons on analogous grounds to those, on which we call three 
yards greater than two. Just as in using the latter expres- 
sion, we mean that one yard would have to be put to two, in 

7 Or because there would have to be added to, or subtracted from, the 
idea of one member of the pair, some generically different idea or ideas, 
in order to make it like the other of the two complex ideas compared : e.g. 
to the idea of a horse has to be added the idea of wings in order to con- 
stitute that of a Pegasus : from the idea of a man has to be subtracted 
the idea of an eye, and other ideas substituted, in order to frame the idea 
of a Cyclops : from the idea of Firmness the idea of sound judgment has 
to be subtracted, in order to establish the idea of Obstinacy. It is for this 
reason only that we call the sensible complex ideas Horse, Man, and the 
mental complex idea, Firmness, different from the mental complex ideas, 
Pegasus, Cyclops, Obstinacv, respectively. 

K 2 



132 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

order to produce in us the same muscular and tactual sensa- 
tions which we experience in moving our finger along a 
physical line of three yards in length : so, in the former 
mode of speech, we mean that further ideas of states- 
manlike qualities would require to be added to, or asso- 
ciated with, those suggested by the name of Charlemagne, in 
order to realize or come up to the combination of qualities, 
which we connect with the idea of the character of Julius 
Csesar. 

Hartley does not formally discuss Qualities, and the cognate 
relative terms so elaborately handled by his successor. His 
incidental remarks, indeed, on this head show him to have 
been (as far as he went) substantially at one with Mill. His 
analysis, however, was not very penetrating or detailed. The 
general conception of Quality was common to the two philo- 
sophers, though Hartley puts his case in a somewhat different 
form from that of Mill. He lays down that the explanation 
of the assent to the proposition, " Gold is soluble in aqua 
regia/' is that the idea of gold has come to suggest the idea 
of solution in aqua regia, and vice versa. (Observ. on Man, 
vol. i. p. 329). This is tantamount to saying, with Mill, 
that the name "solubility in aqua regia " notes the specific 
quality, and connotes the other properties of gold, from 
which we derive sensations, regarded as the antecedent or 
cause of that specific quality. Hartley, however, makes no 
distinction between such propositions as the above, and such 
as " milk is white/' &c, which Mill carefully marks off from 
one another; and therefore presumably would not discrimi- 
nate between the kind of quality called whiteness in milk, 
and the kind of quality, or power, called gold-dissolving in 
aqua regia, or solubility by aqua regia in gold. 

In connexion with the subject of Quality, we ought not to 
omit to mention Hartley's observations on a relation which 



INDUCTION— ANAL OG Y— HYPOTHESIS. 133 

is intimately bound up with that of Similarity in Qualities, 
namely Analogy. 

Hartley uses the term Induction as equivalent to a higher 
type of analogical reasoning. When we see a piece of coal 
before us, and observe that the sensations in us (and, there- 
fore, qualities in the object) of Form, Colour, Consistency, 
&c, are mostly similar to those derived from, or noticeable in, 
other pieces of coal, we immediately infer that, if fire be 
applied to it, it will burn and be reduced to ashes. Such an 
inference is grounded on what Hartley calls "the highest 
probability, which may be termed induction, in the strict 
sense of the word." But when the qualities, in respect of 
which the similarity between the objects is observed, are com- 
paratively few, we call the process analogy and not induction. 
In science Analogy can only be admitted provisionally, and 
where induction is impossible. " Coincidence in mathematical 
matters, and induction in others, wherever they can be had, 
must be sought for as the only certain tests of truth " [vol. i. 
p. 343]. Hartley's view of analogical inference as that mode 
of reasoning, whereby we argue that, where A has one or 
more of its properties or qualities similar to one or more of 
the properties or qualities of B, therefore A will resemble B 
in some or all of their remaining qualities, coincides very 
nearly with J. S. Mill's account of one of his modes of the 
argument from analogy. 

On Hypothesis (which does not come within Mill's scheme, 
and would probably have been relegated by him to the " Book 
of Logic/' which he mentions in the last page of his "Analysis," 
as distinct from analytical psychology), Hartley, who in 
this, as in so many other matters, follows Newton, makes a 
number of sound observations. He notices its different kinds ; 
the provisional hypothesis, awaiting tests and " experimenta 
crucis," before its validity can be established, and the hypo- 



i 3 4 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

thesis sanctioned by analogies, but not yet elevated to the 
rank of an ascertained law : he distinguishes also between 
that form of hypothesis, in which the supposed cause is a real 
one, or is known to operate in the natural world, while its 
causal connexion with the phenomenon to be explained is 
assumed, and that other form, wherein the effect is known, 
and the law governing it, but the cause (e.g. an impon- 
derable a3ther in astronomy) is assumed, though not met with 
among physical phenomena. In connexion with this branch 
of his subject he shrewdly remarks — (what has since been 
observed by Faraday, and other scientific men most compe- 
tent to judge from their own experience) — the dangerous 
fascination of a hypothesis which has once been allowed to 
dwell in the mind, and explains it on principles of association. 
" The ideas, words, and reasonings belonging to the favourite 
hypothesis by recurring and being much agitated in the 
brain, heat it, unite with each other, and so coalesce in the 
same manner, as genuine truths do from induction and 
analogy" [vol. i. p. 346]. In this statement is wrapped up 
a warning especially useful in these days of hypothesis run 
mad. On much the same principle Mill, as we shall see 
below, explains the operation of the Will, and of a desired 
End in connexion therewith, as giving rise to action. 

In Hartley's interesting, but somewhat ill-arranged " farrago 
libelli/' we are constantly coming across matters and hints 
which take us by surprise. Here, for instance, at the end of 
the section on " Propositions and the Nature of Assent/' we 
somewhat unexpectedly meet with a topic, which has had an 
important place in the systems of various philosophers from 
Plato to Mr. Herbert Spencer and Comte, namely, the Classi- 
fication of the Sciences. Hartley's division is rudimentary, 
of course, but not without interest, as reflecting his general 
views. He distributes* knowledge in general into seven 
leading branches. The first of these is significant as an illus- 



HARTLEY ON THE SCIENCES. 135 

tration of the belief, common to him with Mill, in the import- 
ance of names. Under Philology, or the knowledge of words 
and their significations, he places together, oddly enough, 
Grammar, Criticism, Rhetoric, and Poetry. In ancient 
treatises on Poetry (as in Aristotle's Poetica), there is cer- 
tainly a good deal of grammatical disquisition ; but we should 
scarcely have expected from Hartley an arrangement so un- 
scientific, as to include in one class of science both Grammar 
and Poetry. The second branch is Mathematics or the doc- 
trine of Quantity; the third Logic, which he defines, quite in 
the Baconian manner, as the art of using words as symbols, 
("as counters, not as coin/' Hobbes would say), for the 
purpose of discovery in all departments of knowledge. Logic 
presupposes the two foregoing classes to some extent. The 
fourth branch is Natural History, which he terms, as Bacon 
again termed it, " regular and. well-digested accounts of the 
phenomena of the natural world.'" Civil History is the next, 
(in which are comprised histories proper of every kind), followed 
by Natural Philosophy, which depends upon the application 
of Mathematics and Logic to Civil and Natural History, with 
a view to the determination of the laws on which the external 
and physical world is governed, and thereby the acquisition of 
Foreknowledge and Power, or the means of predicting and 
producing phenomena. The seventh and last sphere of know- 
ledge is Divine Philosophy, or Religion, which treats of, 
amongst other things, the Summum Bonum, the highest end 
of life, and, as such, includes Ethics and Politics, and even 
(Hartley appears to hint) may, through the conception of 
Final Cause, be applied with advantage even to the analysis 
and interpretation of natural phenomena. The insertion of 
this last branch of science serves to show us how widely diffe- 
rent Hartley's standpoint was from that of Mill, in relation 
to ethical, political, and generally to practical speculations. 



1 36 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ' l ACTIVE POWERS " OP THE HUMAN MIND. 

We now come to an entirely new section of the Association 
Theory, that, namely wherein are discussed our sensations and 
ideas, not merely as existing in our minds, but in their effect 
upon action. We have done with the intellectual faculties 
and phenomena, and now come to the moral energies or active 
phenomena, of human nature. 1 And in the Association system 
of philosophy, as in all others, we shall see that the practical 
doctrines follow closely the lines of the theoretical. 

Sensations may be either pleasurable, painful, or indifferent. 
They are known to be such only as they are felt : they are 
distinguished from one another in the feeling them, and by 
no other process. We do not, however, attach so much im- 
portance to our ideas of the pleasurable and painful sensations 
as we do to the causes of them, because, as Mill says, the 
sensations, so to speak, ff provide for themselves," whereas it 
is of the greatest interest to us to discover their causes or 
constant antecedents in order that we may learn how to pro- 
duce or remove them, according as the sensations consequent 
upon them are pleasurable or painful. Moreover, the conse- 

1 " Active phenomena of Thought " is a very loose expression : hut it 
is obvious what Mill means bj it. Instead of intellectual and active phe- 
nomena, Hobbes expressed the distinction by the terms, Cognitive and 
Motive Powers. 



DESIRE AND A VERSION. 137 

quent sensations are not nearly so numerous or various as 
their actual and possible antecedents. These considerations 
are sufficient to account for the absorbing attention paid by 
us to the antecedents of sensations, whether proximate or 
remote, and for the fact of the association between the sensa- 
tions and the causes throwing the interest so heavily on to 
the side of the latter, as even to lessen or completely obliterate 
the interest originally attached exclusively to the former, — a 
phenomenon instanced by the familiar case of the miser. 

Ideas of pleasurable or of painful sensations are, like the 
sensations themselves, known only by being experienced. 
They are respectively identical with those states to which we 
give the names of Desire and Aversion. To have the idea of 
a pleasurable sensation is, according to Mill, one and the same 
thing as to have a desire for it : to have the idea of a painful 
sensation one and the same thing as to have an aversion to it. 
But these two expressions are also, by an ambiguity of lan- 
guage, applied to our ideas of the causes of the sensations, as 
well as those of the sensations themselves. We are said to 
have a desire for water, when in reality, the object is indiffe- 
rent except in producing relief from thirst, the pleasure of 
which relief is what we in fact desire. From the fact that 
the names which, in strictness, belong only to the ideas of the 
sensations are (through association) transferred to the ideas 
of their antecedent, Hartley explains the derivative character 
of all intellectual pleasures and pains, which, in his scheme, 
are those of ambition, self-interest, sympathy, theopathy, and 
the moral sense. The " originals " which we really or pri- 
marily desire are sensible pleasures, but out of our secon- 
dary interest in the associated causes of these pleasures, are 
gradually generated independent desires for the "intellectual" 
pleasures. [Observ. on Man, vol. i. pp. 416, 417.] 

The idea, then, of a pleasurable or painful sensation is the 



133 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

same thing as the desire for, or aversion to it, together with a 
connotative reference to the absence of the sensation, the idea 
of which is in our minds. The absence may be either because 
the sensation is past, or because it is to come, — generally the 
latter; Desire and Aversion however are the only terms in 
use to express both the one and the other of these two 
possible cases. It follows that the number of our desires and 
aversions is equal to the number of our pleasurable and painful 
sensations. 

When a pleasurable or painful sensation is contemplated 
as future, but not as certainly about to be experienced, the 
state of consciousness with which it is regarded is called Hope 
or Fear. When such sensations are contemplated as certainly 
about to be felt, the states pf consciousness, with which they 
are respectively regarded, may be described (though unsatis- 
factorily) by the terms Joy and Sorrow. When such sensa- 
tions are contemplated as past, the attitude of the mind is 
almost neutral. But besides the sensations, the causes of 
those sensations, may be regarded either as past or future. If 
as past, the idea or thought of them, unlike that of the sensa- 
tions in an analogous case, is called Antipathy or (less con- 
veniently) Hatred, in the case of past causes of painful, and 
Sympathy or Love (both most inexact terms) in the case of 
past causes of pleasurable, sensations. If as future and cer- 
tain, the state of consciousness is termed Hatred, Horror, or 
Aversion in the one case, and Joy in the other : if as future 
and uncertain, the state of consciousness is called Dread in the 
one case, and Hope in the other. The reason of our regard- 
ing with such interest the past causes of past sensations, 
while we look back with comparatively tranquil feelings on 
the past sensations themselves, is to be found partly in those 
associations to which allusion has already been made, but 
principally in that particular form of it, whereby the thought 



CAUSES OF PLEASURE AND PALY. 139 

of a past antecedent and consequent is no sooner raised in us, 
than the mind becomes, so to speak, possessed with the idea 
of the relation of antecedent and consequent in its generic 
character, and divested of any limitation as to time, and so 
parses naturally, and even irresistibly, to the idea of future 
antecedents and consequents. Then from the idea of a future 
antecedent of a painful sensation, it arrives finally at the idea 
of a future painful sensation : "and thus the feeling' partakes 
of the nature of the anticipation of a future painful sensation." 
[Anal., vol. ii. p. 20£J. The cause of a past pleasurable sen- 
sation is, it is to be observed, not so attractive an object of 
contemplation and reminiscence, as the cause of a past painful 
sensation is a revolting and disagreeable one ; and that because 
the sensation itself in the former case is not so pungent as in 
the latter. But of course the cause of the extinction of a past 
pain is often a subject of the most lively and absorbing in- 
terest. 

Just as the causes of pleasures and pains are more inte- 
resting, for the reasons already given, than the pleasures and 
pains themselves ; so the remote causes of them are often 
more interesting than the proximate, — both for the same rea- 
sons, and owing to this further fact, that the more remote 
causes, such as Money, necessarily carry with them a larger 
number of associated ideas of pleasures and pains; since they 
are associated primarily with all the proximate causes of them 
(Money, for instance, with Food, Health, Comfort, Power, 
Art, &c), and through each of these mediately with several 
sets and combinations of sensations. After these preliminary 
remarks, Mill di&cusses the different causes of our own plea- 
sures and pains in separate classes. Wealth, Power, and 
Dignity have this feature in common, that they all advance 
our happiness as instruments in securing for us the good 
offices of our fellow-men, and hardly at all in any other way. 



140 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

In the achievement of these results, Wealth operates mainly 
through the opportunities which it affords of rewarding others; 
Power (according to Mill) through the opportunities which it 
affords of inflicting evils and imposing burdens on others; 
while Dignity expresses " all that in and about a man which 
is calculated to procure him the services of others, without 
the immediate application of reward or of fear/' together with 
(though in a less marked degree) a disposition to make a 
good use of Wealth and Power (which is Virtue), and Know- 
ledge and Wisdom, which enable him to direct the disposition 
into proper channels. All the three conditions above enume- 
rated procure for their possessor respect and admiration even 
be} 7 ond the sphere of their operation, or of the possibility of 
their operation. This noticeable fact — which other schools of 
philosophy would explain on other grounds, and instance as 
justifying a deduction of the phenomena in question from 
anti-selfish principles — Mill, of course, regards as only another 
example and effect of association. We associate the idea of 
the power of doing good and harm enjoyed by other persons, 
with the idea of pleasurable and painful sensations inflicted in 
the exercise of that power; and with this latter idea is asso- 
ciated the thought of such sensations inflicted on ourselves : 
and, though this association may be only momentary, yet even 
a momentary association — one no sooner formed than for- 
gotten — may be such as to give "its whole character to a 
phenomenon of the human mind;" since, according to the 
theory which Mill emphatically endorses and repeats in this 
connexion, there can. be no idea present to the mind without 
at least a momentary belief in its existence. 

The opposites of the above causes of pleasures, namely, 
Poverty, Weakness, and Contemptibility, admit of the same 
analysis. 

The Affections, or the feelings, with which we regard the 



WEAL TH—PO WER—DIGNIT Y. 141 

above causes of pleasures and pains, whether as past or as 
future — unfortunately we have no names to distinguish affec- 
tions according as they refer to the one or the other — are 
named Love of Wealth, Power, Dignity, and Hatred of 
Poverty, Weakness, Contemptibility. It is only in this 
roundabout manner that we can express them. 

When the element of comparison enters into our state of 
consciousness while contemplating the above causes of pleasures 
and pains (that is, when we compare the degree in which they 
are enjoyed or endured by ourselves with the extent to which 
they are enjoyed or endured by others), the affections called 
Pride, where the comparison is favourable to ourselves, and 
Humility, where it is unfavourable, are engendered. This is 
where the reference is primarily to such causes as possessed by 
ourselves — when the Self is the standard of comparison : when 
another individual is the standard by which we measure our- 
selves, the respective affections are those of Contempt and 
Admiration. 

On the pleasures and pains connected with the sentiments 
of Power, Dignity, &c, Hartley has something to say, though, 
as usual, of a descriptive, rather than a deeply analytical, 
character. He does not formulate distinctions so nicely, or 
dissect with so keen a scalpel, as the later philosopher. But, 
under the head of the Pains and Pleasures of Ambition, he 
makes some penetrating observations covering much the same 
ground as Mill's treatment of Wealth, Power, and Dignity. 
Of these pleasures and pains of ambition he recognizes several 
varieties, according as they are referred to, and connected 
with, External Advantages or Disadvantages, Bodily Per- 
fections and Imperfections, Intellectual Qualities (accomplish- 
ments or defects), or Moral Qualities (virtue and vice). 
Under the first of these he includes riches, titles, &c, and 
their opposites, most of which Mill would consider as inci- 



142 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

dental to Wealth and Dignity ; under the second, Beauty, 
Health, and Strength, which Mill would probably refer to 
Power and Dignity. The last two classes speak for them- 
selves; and without the one to supply the right means, and 
the other the right end, Mill (as we have seen) would hardly 
admit that Dignity could properly be said to exist. 

In common with Mill, Hartley is of opinion that, in seeking 
the good offices and opinions of others, the primary object in 
the first instance is the acquisition of the pleasures, and avoid- 
ance of the pains, likely to result to us from their attitude 
towards us ; 2 but that, by association, we accustom ourselves 
to seek those good offices and opinions independently of im- 
mediate results, and even when results of any kind are almost 
or entirely beyond the range of probability or even possibility. 
He takes account, accordingly, of the fact that counter-asso- 
ciations may equally well be generated, whereby poverty, 
instead of riches, low instead of high birth, may be identified 
in thought with the pleasures and aims of ambition (as, for 
instance, in the history of monastic orders) ; and notes that 
the common element in all the pleasures of ambition, of what- 
ever kind, is the prominence in their constitution of the 
" videri," as compared with the " esse," and the greater 
richness of the former in the interesting associations and ideas 
which it is able to bring before the mind. \Observ. on Man, 
vol. i. p. 446, sqq.] It is to be thought, not to be, rich, of 
high birth, strong, beautiful, intellectual, virtuous, &c, that 
men rise so early, and so late take rest — in so far at least as 
they are actuated by ambition, which is all that we are at 
present considering. 

To he thought intellectual is considered desirable by most 

2 " All the things," he writes [vol. i. p. 455], " in which men pride 
themselves, and for which they desire to he taken notice of by others, are 
either means of happiness, or have some near relation to it/' 



HARTLEY ON AMBITION. 143 

men, chiefly (says Hartley) owing to the association in their 
minds of the eagerly pronounced opinions of learned men in 
their books to that effect, apart from a consideration of the 
more obvious and external advantages accruing" from such a 
reputation. Hartley seems to insinuate that the world is in 
a gigantic conspiracy to suppress and degrade the dullard ; 
and that, in discussing the comparative merits of ignorance 
and learning, the controversy has always been entirely on one 
side. While Learning has always a series of recorded opinions 
with which to support its case, and so a link of association iu 
its favour is formed — a link which becomes stronger every day 
from repetition — the dullard, on the other hand, " ex vi 
termini " cannot write books himself, or plead his own cause. 
Many a learned man could write a " Ship of Fools/ 3 but no 
dunce can write an "Encomium Morice" The scholar does 
it for him occasionally, but, unfortunately, only in such a way 
as to show that his real object is to attack other learned men, 
and not at all to elevate the fool. In his serio-comical way — - 
we often cannot be quite sure whether he is amusing himself 
or in earnest — Hartley alludes, in this connexion, to "the 
high-strained eucomiums, applauses, and flatteries, paid to 
parts and learning, and the outrageous contempt and ridicule 
thrown upon folly and ignorance, in all the discourses and 
writings of men of genius and learning " [perhaps Hartley 
had been reading the Dunciad of his friend Pope] ; " these 
persons being extremely partial to their own excellences, and 
carrying the world with them by the force of their parts and 
eloquence" [vol. i. p. 449]. In considering those kinds of 
the pleasures and pains of ambition which relate to the repu- 
tation of virtue or vice, it is to be noticed that Hartley, like 
most of his successors in the Associationist School, universally 
adopts the Sensational or Selfish theory of morals, that is to 
say, the theory which derives in the last resort the love of 



144 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

virtue and repugnance to vice from the desire of the real and 
supposed pleasures associated with the idea of the practice of 
the one, and the aversion to the real and supposed pains 
associated with the idea of the practice of the other. He 
maintains the reward-and-punishment doctrine of ethical 
action. Thus it is the " many advantages resulting from the 
reputation of being benevolent," which causes most people to 
desire that reputation: and the honour in which the virtue of 
Benevolence, as contrasted with that in which Piety, for 
instance, is held, is explained on egoistic and utilitarian prin- 
ciples combined (since it does not very clearly appear whether 
the advantages spoken of are advantages to the individual 
agent, or to others). Military glory he deduces from a more 
exclusively utilitarian starting-point, coupled of course, with 
association. Humility he divides into negative and positive, 
the former being " the not thinking better, or more highly, of 
ourselves than we ought," and the latter " a deep sense of our 
own misery and imperfections of all kinds " [vol. i. p. 455], 
and here sagaciously observes that men are often impelled by 
the grossest motives of vanity and ambition to seek the re- 
putation of that which contradicts it, namely, humility. 3 In 
this he finds an instance of the tendency of vice to destroy 
itself. 

Not only are the prospects of praise or blame incentives to 
or deterrents from a particular course of action or a particular 
habit, but (as is acutely remarked by Hartley) it is considered 
praiseworthy to be influenced by praise and blame, and cen- 
surable to be unsusceptible to those influences. And thus 
" praise and shame have a strong reflected influence upon 

3 One is reminded of the story of Diogenes theatrically stamping on 
Plato's rich carpets, with the words, " thus do I trample on the pride of 
Plato ; " to which Plato retorted, " with yet greater pride yourself, 
Diogenes." 



HARTLE Y ON SELF-INTERES T. 145 

themselves," and "praise begets the love of praise, and shame 
increases the fear of shame."" The latter part, however, of 
this proposition may be considered doubtful. Tt is rather to 
be gathered from experience, and would certainly be supposed 
a priori, that it ought to stand as the converse to the other 
part, and that a succession of ignominies heaped upon a 
man produces as shameless a callosity and indifference as a 
succession of encomiums and rewards fosters, if it does not 
engender, a refined and delicate sense of honour. 

Self-Interest Hartley divides (not very philosophically) into 
three kinds, Gross, Refined, and Rational. The exposition of 
Gross Self-Interest covers the same ground as those observa- 
tions of Mill on the Love of Wealth, on which we have already 
commented. It is defined as " the cool pursuit of the means 
whereby the pleasures of sensation, imagination, and ambition, 
are to be obtained, and their pains avoided," and he refers to 
the love of money as a crucial and interesting example, both 
of the pursuit of Gross Self-interest, and of the general prin- 
ciples of association. In this latter reference, his language is 
almost identical with that of both the Mills, the younger of 
whom relies largely on the phenomena of avarice to support 
his utilitarian theory. There can be no original desire for 
money in itself. But from being regarded as the measure, 
standard, and exponent of a large variety of the pleasures of 
common life, it comes, by association, to signify, and stand 
for, " the thing itself, the sum total of all that is desirable in 
life." And so completely and rapidly is this mental process 
accomplished, that even a child will prefer a piece of money, 
as the symbol of a choice of pleasures deferred, to the imme- 
diate fruition of any specific pleasure. 

Wealth, Power, and Dignity, are only mediately the causes 
of our pleasures and pains — through the intervention, that is, of 
the actions and attitude towards us of our fellow-men. Having 



146 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

examined the ultimate causes, Mill proceeds to treat of the 
(relatively to them) proximate causes, of our pleasures and 
pains — in a word, our Fellow-men. And with this view, he 
discusses successively Friendship, Kindness, Love of Family, 
of Party, of Country, of Mankind, according to the extent of 
the various circles and sections of humanity whose actions may 
be supposed to affect our happiness. These sentiments are 
expounded on principles, with which the reader by this time 
will be sufficiently familiar ; and we need not stop to examine 
his account in detail. Suffice it to say that in each case, 
according* to Mill, the ideas of services rendered and to be 
rendered, benefits derived and to be derived, pleasures enjoyed 
and to be enjoyed, are associated, directly or circuitously, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, but always strongly, with the ideas 
of the individuals or portions of mankind who are the objects 
of the sentiments in question. And the sentiments are the 
outcome of, and depend for their force and durability, upon 
that association. 

One or two views, however, colouring all the different parts 
of Mill's exposition of our Fellow-men regarded as the causes 
of our pleasures and pains, should be noticed. To begin with, 
Mill has a somewhat peculiar notion as to the manner in which 
a person prompted to do a kind action regards a fellow-creature 
in pain, or in which a Father or Husband regards his Son or 
Wife, as the cause of his own pain or pleasure. His theory is 
that we cannot see a man in pain, without associating with 
the idea of his pain the idea of ourselves as suffering' it ; that, 
this latter idea being painful to us, we hasten to remove it by 
removing the man's sufferings; and that it is thus only that 
he can be said to be the cause of our pain, or we to be prompted 
to do a kind action. . This, however, can hardly be said to 
answer to the experience of most men ; and J. S. Mill, in cor- 
recting the error (which, however, he is inclined to regard as 



THE S YMPA THETIC AFFECTIONS. 147 

lying rather in expression than in meaning), carefully points 
out that there is probably no conscious association of the kind 
described, but that the idea of another person in pain is to 
most people in if self a painful idea. Benevolent and com- 
passionate impulses may be in the last resort reducible to such 
an association ; but this is a different thing from saying that 
it is actually experienced on each occasion of performing kind 
actions. u An association does not necessarily act in all cases, 
because it exists in all cases u \_Aual. vol. i. p. 218. Editor's 
note] . 

The Parental and Marital Affections are very minutely 
analyzed : and it is shown how, apart from the parental and 
sexual instincts involved in them, association contributes a 
large share to their formation and development, as appears in 
the case of a man rearing orphan children, and in similar 
instances, where such instincts cannot exist. 

In connexion with the discussion of these affections, some 
shrewd observations are to be found : as, for instance, that a 
man is prone to love the person on whom he has frequently 
conferred benefits — (which is the converse of Aristotle's obser- 
vation that there is something in human nature which impels 
a man to hate one from whom he has received frequent and 
great benefits, and to whom he is under lasting obligations) ; — 
also the remark that one among other strong incentives to a 
mother to love her child is the recollection of the pains and 
hopes and fears connected with parturition, (which again 
corresponds to another quaint Aristotelian dictum to the effect 
that maternal affection, like the artistic pride of the poet and 
sculptor in his own works, is a case of the law, according to 
which that is most loved, which has been produced with the 
greatest pain and anxiety). In the case of the Family 
Affections, as in that of the Love of Wealth, and the Desire 
for Posthumous Fame (noticed later in the Analysis), which 

L % 



148 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

seem to be the most typical illustrations, Mill draws attention 
to the tendency of association to render the means more 
acceptable than the end, and the disposition, by exercising 
which we achieve pleasures, more desirable than those pleasures 
themselves. 

The associations connected with the ideas of Party, Country, 
or Mankind in general are merely enlargements of those con- 
nected with the ideas of Family, Friends, persons in distress, 
&c. Any one of the various affections dependent upon these 
associations may of course militate against one or more of the 
others. To subordinate them to one another properly, giving 
each its just weight and proportion of influence, is to order 
life well. A man may " give up to party what is meant" for 
country, and to country " what is meant for mankind," — or 
conversely he may give up to mankind what is meant for 
country, party, friends, family, or those whose calls on his 
assistance are the most immediate and urgent ; and (like the 
elder Mirabeau) call himself the Friend of Man, in order to 
dispense with being the friend of wife and family : in such 
cases, life is ordered badly. Class-feeling, Esprit de Corps, 
Party-Spirit, Codes of Honour, "honour among thieves," &c, 
all these are so many recognitions of our dependence upon 
some circle of our fellow-men, some portion of humanity, 
wider than the limits of the domestic hearth, not only for our 
pleasures and comfort, but for social, that is human, existence 
itself. It is only when not corrected by the higher and 
broader associations that the Spirit of Caste, devotion to 
Church or Order, becomes reprehensible and, in extreme 
cases, even wicked and hateful. 

We have seen that Hartley divides Pleasures and Pains 
into — apart from those of Imagination, which will be treated 
separately in a later chapter — those of Sensation, Ambition, 
Self-interest, Sympathy, Theopathy, and the Moral Sense. 



HARTLEY ON S YMPA TH Y. 149 

This is not a very philosophical division : for, on examination, 
the pleasures of Self-Interest seem to be not properly in- 
cluded in the list, but rather to stand outside it, because they 
are nothing more or less than (to use Hartley's own words) 
the pleasures " generated by attention to and frequent reflec- 
tion upon, the things which promise us" the pleasures of 
Sensation, Imagination, Ambition (in which cases the Self- 
interest is gross), Sympathy, Theopathy, and the Moral Sense 
(in which cases the Self-Interest is refined). In fact they are 
only the pleasures of the other six classes with a special 
reference to the Self. The motive would thus appear to 
constitute the distinction. In the one case the pleasures are 
contemplated merely as attendant and consequent, as a matter 
of fact, upon certain sensations and acts; in the other, as con- 
sciously pursued by the agent, in the doing of certain acts, 
or the putting one's self in the way of receiving certain 
sensations. So that we may pass over Hartley's Refined 
Self-interest for the present, 4 and proceed to his account of 
the Pleasures and Pains of Sympathy, which covers the same 
ground as Mill's theory of our Fellow-creatures regarded as 
the causes of our pleasures and pains. 

Hartley distributes the sympathetic affections into (1) those 
by which we rejoice at the happiness of others, (2) those by 
which we grieve for their misery, (3) those by which we 
rejoice at their misery, (4-) those by which we grieve for their 
happiness. It is a somewhat over-subtle refinement which 
separates the first of these classes from the second, and the 
third from the fourth. Two classes are quite sufficient. 

4 Rational Self-Interest (as distinct from Gross and Refined) appears to 
be tantamount to the judicious ordering of life as a whole, as contrasted 
with the acquisition of pai titular pleasures, — the pursuit of happiness 
instead of momentary gratifications of sense, — eudsemonism as opposed 
to hedonism. 



150 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

Sociality, Benevolence, Generosity, Gratitude (of which "a 
lively sense of favours to come " is recognized as one con- 
stituent element, though not the absolute equivalent, as in the 
proverb), Compassion, and Mercy are treated under the 
former of these two heads much in the same way, though not 
so minutely or accurately, as they are analyzed by Mill. The 
force of association in producing " pure disinterested benevo- 
lence" (a slightly contradictory expression in the mouth of 
an Associationist) is insisted on by him, as by the later 
philosopher. 5 In his remarks on Compassion and Mercy, 
Hartley speaks of the sight of another's pain directly exciting 
disagreeable sensations in the percipient, which act on his 
nervous system, 6 giving rise to "painful internal feelings," 
and calling up, immediately or by association, unpleasant 
ideas. He nowhere resorts to the needless and artificial design 
of inferring an association between the idea of the pain of 
another, and the idea of the self as suffering that pain, which 
is Mill's explanation of the phenomena; and, to this extent, 
he is the more satisfactory of the two. Mercy, he observes, 
is a higher quality than Compassion, because it has to over- 
come a repugnance founded on retributive justice or a legiti- 
mate vindictiveness. 

In the second of the two classes (amalgamated as above) are 
comprised Moroseness, Anger, Revenge, Jealousy, Cruelty, 
Malice, Emulation, and Envy. Into the ideas productive of 
these tempers of mind, those (already considered) attendant 
upon the Love of Power and Dignity and Wealth largely 
enter. The idea of another's happiness or power, when com- 
bined with acquiescence in it, constitutes (in relation to our- 

5 It is a recognition of this process which induces even Epicurus to say 
of his ideal wise man, that " he will sometimes die for his friend." 

6 " Persons whose nerves are easily irritable .... are, in general, more 
disposed to compassion than others." \_Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 475.] 



HARTLE Y OX S YMPA THY. 151 

selves) the affection of Humility, and (in relation to the other 
person, as we have seen) Respect and Admiration. But, when 
not so combined, and when the Love of Power and of Dignity 
is strongly developed, Envy and Jealousy are the Affections 
which result. It is this Love of Power, and the ideas asso- 
ciated with it, which often lead us (involuntarily, and against 
our better natures) to feel that degree of complacency in con- 
templating the fortunes of our friends, which the proverbial 
moralizers tell us that even the best of men are apt to feel at 
times. 

Having discussed these varieties of the sympathetic temper, 
and the share which association has in producing them, 
Hartley first notices the different materials on which such 
tempers may be exercised ; and in his arrangement he is at one 
with Mill. His analysis of the marital and parental affections 
[vol. i. pp. 483 — 485] is followed closely, almost word for 
word, by Mill, as also his account of Friendship, Devotion to 
Country, Mankind, &c. Nothing need be added here to what 
has already been said. 

*\Ve have now considered (1) the proximate causes of our 
pleasures and pains, namely sensations (2) the remote causes, 
namely (a) Wealth, Power, and Dignity, (b) the dispositions 
of our Fellow- Creatures, to which Mill here adds, (c) the acts, 
as distinguished from the dispositions, of our Fellow- 
creatures. 7 It remains now to examine in order these several 
causes (whether proximate or remote), considered as conse- 
quents of our own acts, in connexion with which the corre- 
sponding Motives will come under consideration. 

7 The remaining class of Remote Causes, namely " the objects called 
Sublime and Beautiful and their Contraries," we reserve for separate con- 
sideration in the chapter devoted to the aesthetic, as distinguished from 
the intellectual and ethical, sides of the association theory represented by 
Hartley and James Mill. 



152 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

Mill defines Motive in the following terms : " when the 
idea of a pleasure is associated with an action of our own as 
its cause ; that is, contemplated as the consequent of a certain 

action of ours, and incapable of otherwise existing, 

a peculiar state of mind is generated, which, as it is a tendency 
to action, is properly denominated Motive. - " [Anal. vol. ii. 
p. 258.] More strictly, the association above mentioned as 
leading to action is the association of the idea of an action of 
our own as cause, with the idea of a cause of our pleasure 
(whether proximate or remote) as effect; while, as has been 
already shown, the mere contemplation of the cause of our 
pleasure or pain, whether past or future, when regarded as 
independent of our own actions, is called Affection. A readi- 
ness to obey the Motive — a facility of being acted upon by 
it — is the corresponding Disposition. 

A motive must necessarily produce action, where there are 
no counteracting motives; and, in all cases, must tend to pro- 
duce action, even when eventually overcome by other moral 
forces. Every pleasure being desirable, for otherwise it would 
not be a pleasure, the idea of any pleasure associated with the 
idea of action on our part producing it, must necessarily lead 
to that action, and so possess motivity, (though the term Motive 
is often loosely and incorrectly used to denominate the 
pleasure, without the accompanying idea of our own agency). 
The comparative strength of different motives in the case of 
any one individual depends upon the comparative strength 
of the associations, engendered by habit and education, 
(Aristotle's eOos and BcSa^rj), between different pleasures and 
different actions or courses of action. The right thing to 
learn is how to make the abstractedly desirable equivalent to 
the actually desired, how to make the values and the associa- 
tions correspond. - / 

In this part of his exposition, Mill carefully points out the 



AFFECTION— MO TI VE— DISPOSITION. 1 5 3 

distinction between the Motives,, the Affections, and the Dis- 
positions in each of the classes of causes of pleasures already 
mentioned, notwithstanding the almost invariable identity of 
name to denote all three states of mind, or at least two of 
them, the Motive and the Disposition, — an identity extremely 
embarrassing in any attempt at analysis. The following 
tables will show the Motives, &c, in each of the four 
classes alluded to, and exhibit the results of Mill's careful 
analysis : — 



I. Sensations, the proximate causes of oue Pleasures and 

Pains. 



Affection = Motive. Disposition. 


Object. 


r a. Love of Eating (Gluttony when in excess). 

] |3. Love of Sex (Lust, when in excess). 

J y. Love of Drinking (Drunkenness when in 
V. excess). 


The 

same 

names. 


Palate. 

Sex. 

Drink. 



It will be noticed that in the above class the Affection is 
the Motive in fact as well as in name, because our own acts 
are here the direct antecedents of our pleasures (regarding the 
pleasurable sensations as equivalent to the pleasures, as, 
following general usage, we may do), and not (except for 
purposes of strict analysis) the causes of the causes of our 
pleasures. A generic name for all the cases of excess above 
noted is Sensuality, w.hich, like the names of its various 
species, stands both for Disposition, Motive, and Affection. 
Each of the senses, of course, has its separate motive, but only 
the above have> names in common use. Temperance and 
Intemperance are names of Dispositions only, and have 



154 



HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



reference to Pleasures and Pains generally. The former Mill 
defines as " an equal facility of associating with any act both 
its pleasures and its pains/ [Anal. vol. ii. p. 262], In the 
case of the latter Disposition, the pleasurable associations 
overbalance the painful. We now come to the remote causes 
of our pleasures and pains, and first as to — 



II. Wealth, Poweb, and Dignity. 



Affection. 


Motive. 


Disposition. 


Object. 


("a. Love of Wealth — 






Wealth. 


Avarice, Kapacity, 


The 


The 




(when in excess). 








/3. Love of Power 


same 


same 


Power. 


< (Ambition). 


names. 


names. 




y. Love of Dignity. 






Dignity. 


8. Pride. 


Emulation. 


( Emulation. 
\ Ambition. 


All the above as 
compared with 


le. Humility (Envy). 


Envy. 


Envy. 


the Wealth, &c. 
of others, to our 
own advantage, 
or to our own 
disadvantage. 



The last two of the above affections (with their corre- 
sponding motives and dispositions) require some explanation. 
When we contemplate our own wealth, power, and dignity as 
small, and slightly productive of pleasure, in comparison with 
those of other men, the Affection is Humility; when we con- 
template them as large, the Affection is Pride. But when we 
associate the idea of an increase to our wealth, &c, as com- 
pared with those of others, with an act of our own as causing 
that increase, the Motive is Emulation ; when we associate 



CLASSIFICATION OF MOTIVES, ETC. 155 

the idea of our own poverty, &c, as compared with the 
riches &c, of others, with the idea of some act of our own 
detracting from the superior influence of others, the Motive is 
Envy. 



III. The States oe Attitudes towabds us of oue Fellow-men, 

AND ALTEEATIONS IN THOSE STATES OE ATTITUDES. 



Affection. 


Motive. 


Disposition. 


Object. 


a. 


Friendship. 






Friends. 


0. 


Kindness (or Compas- 
sion when the im- 
mediate object is 






No class. 




removal of pain). 


The 


The 




y- 


C Love of Family. 
\ Parental Affection. 


same 


same 


> Family. 


8. 


Patriotism. 






Country. 


t. 


C Esprit de Corps. 
J Love of one's Order, 
j Church. &c. 
(^ Party-spirit. 


names. 


names. 


Class. 


£• 


Love of Mankind. 






Mankind. 



Here too the distinction between the Affections, Motives, 
and Dispositions is manifest, though the names are again, 
unfortunately, the same. In speaking of the last of the 
above motives, Love of Mankind, Mill takes occasion to 
observe that large conceptions, such as those of Country, 
Mankind, and the like, not being directly objects of sense 
can only be brought home to men's minds through the 
medium of General Terms. For this purpose, as "an aid to 
the senses," in Baconian language. Philosophical Education 
necessary. 



i 5 6 



HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



IV. The Acts (as distinguished from the States) both of our- 
selves, and of oue Fellow-creatures, which cause us 
pleasure or pain. 



Object. 


Affection. 


Motive. 


Disposition. 


a. Acts primarily useful to 








the agent, secondarily 








to others : — 








( (a) when the acts are 


C Courage. 
\ Prudence. 




J our own, 




j (b) when the acts are 
L those of others. 


Moral Approbation. 




j3. Acts primarily useful to 


1 


The 


others, secondarily to 






the agent: — 


1 


same 


( (a) when the acts are 


f Justice. 

\ Beneficence. 




J our own, 


names. 


j (b) when the acts are 
(^ those of others. 


Moral Approbation. 




y. Acts coirvpreh ending all 


I 




the above :— - 


I 




( (a) when the acts are 


Virtue. 




J our own, 








j (b) when the acts are 


Moral Appro- 


Love of 




V. those of others. 


bation, Moral 


Approbation, 






Sense, Moral 


&c. 






Intention, 








Moral Fa- 








culty, Sense 








of Right and 








Wrong, &c. 







The fourth and last table demands a somewhat detailed 
explanation. It is to be noticed in the first place that Mill, 
conformably to his ethical theory as developed in the Frag- 
ment on Mackintosh and Miscellaneous Essays, holds the 
generic element in the four cardinal virtues to be the conferring 
of benefits on men, whether ourselves or our fellow-creatures, 
primarily on ourselves in the case of Fortitude and Prudence, 



PRUDEXCE AXD COURAGE. 157 

primarily on others in the ease of Justice and Beneficence. 
But — and here he seems to be following Gay very closely — 
since Prudent and Courageous acts best enable us to perform 
acts of Justice and Benevolence to others, and since, further, 
our own acts of Justice and Benevolence best dispose others to 
perform similar acts towards ourselves, it follows that each of 
these two main classes of acts, the primarily self- regarding, 
and the primarily altruistic, may be said to have a double 
aspect. 

And not only this, — but there is another difference to be 
observed, according as the acts which cause us pleasure or pain 
are our own, or those of other men. 

First let us consider the case where the acts in question are 
our own. TVe associate with any of our own acts of Prudence 
and Courage, as its immediate consequence, some advantage 
to ourselves, either Pleasure, that is, or the cause of Pleasure : 
and, moreover, we associate with the ideas of our own acts of 
Justice and Beneficence the ideas of the pleasurable feelings 
of a fellow-creature (ideas which are pleasurable in them- 
selves), and also the ideas of the benefits which we secondarily 
derive from our fellow- creatures by the performance of such 
acts, (the ideas, that is, of causes of pleasure to ourselves). 
Now to contemplate a Pleasure, together with its cause (how- 
ever remote), is to have a complex idea, which, after repetition, 
ceases to be an indifferent, and becomes a pleasurable, idea, 
that is, an Affection. And to contemplate, in addition, an 
act of ours as causing that cause, is to have the corresponding 
Motive. But in this case there is no act of ours to be 
associated as cause of that cause, because our own act is the 
cause. Therefore, in this case as in that Class V T), the Motive 
is the Affection, and the Affection is the Motive. The 
Disposition in this, as in all instances, is the ready capability, 
induced by habitual exercise and education (the eft? induced 



153 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

by e#05 and StSaxv in Aristotelian language) of being in- 
fluenced by the Motive, or, to use Mill's curious phraseology, 
of " performing the associations/' 

Now as to another man's acts of Prudence, Courage, Justice, 
and Beneficence. These, though (as we have seen) primarily 
useful to the agent himself, are also secondarily useful to 
others, as being the causes or conditions of the performance 
by him of acts to their advantage, if not (as often in the 
case of Fortitude) acts directly useful in themselves to others. 
As such, they are attended by agreeable associations. Our 
ideas of such prudent or brave acts of another, — of acts, that 
is, related to our pleasures as causes (however remote) to 
effects, — become in this way complex pleasurable ideas, or 
Affections. It is of course still more obvious how Affections 
are generated, where the ideas of Just and Beneficent acts on 
the part of others is associated directly with pleasurable ideas 
of the advantages to be derived therefrom primarily by 
persons other than the agent himself, and how strong such 
Affections will become. The generic name for them is Moral 
Approbation or Disapprobation, Moral Sense, and the like; 
and this is also the name of the corresponding Motive, or of 
the association not only of the Prudent, Brave, Just, and 
Beneficent actions of others as causes with our pleasures as 
effects, but also of our own acts with, and as causing, these 
causes. For by what means can we, through our own acts, 
cause those causes ? Firstly, by performing similar acts our- 
selves ; but, secondly, by conferring praise on those acts of 
others of the nature specified, and affixing the stigma of 
Blame or Dispraise on the reverse. When we associate acts 
of praise or condemnation on our part as causes with the acts 
of our fellow-creatures as effects, and these latter acts as 
causes with our pleasures as effects, such an association will 
lead to action, and is therefore a Motive, which has received 



JUSTICE AND BENEFICENCE. 159 

some such name as that designated above. The same term, or 
perhaps better Love of Approbation, (it must be admitted 
that, in all this part of his work, Mill's terminology is terribly 
confused), serves also for the corresponding Disposition. 

Some further remarks of Mill on the subject of the special 
motives and virtues fall to be noticed here. 

Since Prudence expresses, according to Mill, " the choice 
made, among all the innumerable acts within our power, of 
those, the consequences of which, when the pleasurable and 
painful are balanced against one another, constitute the 
greatest amount of good" [vol. ii. p. 282], it follows that to 
be prudent, a man must have knowledge and experience of all 
or most of the possible consequences, or successions of con- 
sequences, which any given act has produced or may produce. 
Judgment is therefore requisite, as well as a certain disposition, 
and state of the will : and hence the semi-intellectual character 
of Prudence. So far most persons would agree : but when 
Mill goes on to say that knowledge is a condition of Courage 
as well as of Prudence (in this following Plato), and that 
Courage is but incurring the danger or possibility of evil for 
the certainty of ultimate good, — is, in fact, (for Mill, like 
Plato, 8 goes this length) only a species of Prudence, the 
analysis will probably be thought faulty. Courage is all the 
more courage when there is most to be lost, and most chance 
of its being lost. On any other explanation Mill would be 
obliged to call the death of the Spartans at Thermopylae an 
act not of courage but of fatuity, an " immoral act " (as he 
himself says, when speaking of cases in which no ultimate 
good to the agent is probable) ; and the courage of a beast (as 
having less to lose) would be superior to the courage of an 
Athenian of the age of Pericles. The very fact that we often 

8 Plato defines Courage as "a right judgment concerning things to be 
feared and not to be feared." 



i6o HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

call an action brave, but rash, shows the vital distinction 
between Courage and Prudence. It is when a highly civilized 
being possesses the greatest appreciation of life, and is bound 
to it by the strongest and most various ties, that his courage 
is most peculiarly and markedly courage. As Professor Bain 
observes in his note [vol. ii. p. 284 of the Analysis'] , " the 
courageous soldier is not he who maintains a post of apparent 
danger unmoved, knowing that there is no real danger. . . . 
Something very different is exacted in return for the epithet 
of a brave man/" 

Justice is similarly considered by Mill to be a section of 
Beneficence, and just acts to be carved out of the class of 
beneficent acts merely by reference to the particular legal 
system in use in a particular country at a particular time. 
In point of fact, the conventional theory of Justice is adopted. 
Out of all the various acts of individuals which are productive 
of good to others, some are so in virtue of their conforma- 
bility to the laws of the state in which they are performed. 
There is no place in Mill's system for any theory of mental 
construction in the matter, of any constitution by the indi- 
vidual of an equity within himself, or even of adaptation of 
mathematical processes and proportions to the facts of the 
moral world. Mill is a philosopher in this respect re- 
sembling Plato's litigant, and is obliged to go to the law 
courts for justice, because he has none of his own making. 

In connexion with the subject of the influence of Praise 
and Blame on moral action, Mill notices that the very names 
of the cardinal virtues and of Virtue itself, signify not only 
the qualities characteristic of virtuous acts, but also the plea- 
surable ideas of the benefits resulting from the exercise of 
those qualities, and the performance of those acts. They are, 
in Bentham's phraseology, eulogistic terms, while their oppo- 
sites are dyslogistic. This alone is of immense power in 



MORAL APPROBATION. 161 

attracting men to Virtue ; and every one knows the kind of 
homage which Vice is forced to pay to it, in assuming the 
properties and titles of its opponent, in order to secure a 
tolerable status. The importance of such names is not to be 
overlooked. History teaches us how much depends on whether 
the name of assassination or that of national deliverance is 
assigned to a deed immediately after its committal ; and that 
this often has its appreciable share in determining whether a 
human being is to be execrated as a Guy Fawkes, or exalted 
as a Harmodius, a Jael, or a Charlotte Corday. Many im- 
portant effects may be traced to the designation of a dis- 
turbance of constitutional relations in a country as a revolution, 
or as a rebellion ; and much depends on whether a body of 
reformers succeed in q'etting' themselves called a Constitution 
or a Convention, a Party or a Faction. Eulogistic terms, 
then, having by themselves alone so much significance and 
influence, it may be imagined what a degree of controlling 
power is exerted on the deeds of our fellow-creatures by the 
systematic diffusion of applause and condemnation. Praise, 
as Mill says, extends to all men : whereas our own acts (the 
alternative means of securing the performance of virtuous acts 
by others) extend only to a few. In the former case we not 
only express our own favourable disposition towards the per- 
son who is its object, but we at the same time point him out 
to others as a fit object of a similar affection on their parts 
towards him. From the pleasurable ideas connected with the 
being praised by others, springs not only that extraordinary 
case of association, which has already been noticed, the desire 
of posthumous fame, (when the idea of advantageous conse- 
quences to ourselves is so firmly associated with the idea of 
the performance of virtuous actions, that we cannot dissociate 
the two ideas, notwithstanding that a very little reflection 
tell us that the two things cannot coexist after death), but also 

M 



1 62 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

the desire of being deserving of praise, and the dread of being 
deserving of blame, — the Love of Praiseworthiness, and the 
Fear of Blameworthiness ; as also the state of misery attendant 
on the consciousness of being blameworthy in reference to past 
actions, which is called Remorse. 

Hartley makes the pleasures and pains of the Moral Sense 
a special class of the various pleasures and pains of which 
human beings are susceptible. He places them at the end of 
his list, after those of Sensation, Imagination, Ambition, Self- 
interest, Sympathy, and Theopathy ; and all these latter must, 
in his view, have been experienced before those of the Moral 
Sense can be properly appreciated. In his account of this 
Moral Sense, he differs slightly from Mill, in so far as he 
bases it less on a conscious regard to the utility of actions. 
He speaks of u a pleasing consciousness and self-approbation" 
rising up in the mind of a person who believes himself to be 
possessed of virtuous qualities, " exclusively of any direct 
explicit consideration of advantage likely to accrue to him- 
self" \Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 493]. Like Mill, he re- 
marks on the eulogistic character of the names of virtue and 
the different virtuous qualities ; and also how the pleasurable 
ideas incidental to the frequent use and application of these 
names are gradually impressed by education on the minds of 
children. Like his master in this department of his subject, 
Gay, he notices the rival theories of Hutcheson, as to the 
instinctive character of the moral sense, and of the mathe- 
matical Platonists, Clarke and Cud worth, as to its alleged foun- 
dation in the eternal relations of things; and he contends 
that if it be meant that the supposed instinct, or the supposed 
relations, exist or operate independently of association, then no 
indubitable instances or proofs of such existence or operation 
have been produced. All moral judgments, approbations, and 
disapprobations are, in his opinion, deduced from association 



HARTLEY ON THE MORAL SENSE. 163 

alone; though it is admitted (as we have implied above), 
that these associations may be " formed so early, repeated so 
often, riveted so strong/' as, in a popular way, to deserve the 
name of " original and natural dispositions or instincts/' or 
even of " axioms and intuitive propositions/' 



ix 2 



1 64 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE WILL, AS EXPLAINED BY HARTLEY AND MILL. 

It is characteristic of the Association Theory of Hartley and 
James Mill, that the Will occupies a very late place — in 
Mill's analysis, the very last — in their examination of moral 
phenomena. In the systems opposed to the derivative theories 
of ethics, it comes into prominence at the very outset of the 
inquiry. Kant, for instance, begins at once with its defini- 
tion, from which, as a starting-point, he evolves his entire 
speculations on morals. Schopenhauer, again, a philosopher 
of a very different type, although he professes to be following 
out Kant's doctrines to their legitimate issue, considers that 
this all-powerful Will, the centre of Personality, should be 
suppressed in favour of the impersonal Intellect, if happiness 
is ever to be achieved for men. But whether as the mainstay 
and foundation of morals, or as the incessant obstacle in the 
path of tranquillity, all philosophers, except Associationists, 
have concurred in placing the Will in the forefront of their 
ethical systems. With Hartley and Mill, on the other hand, 
after everything else is determined, and not till then, the Will 
follows as the necessary result. Given Association, Affection, 
Motive, Disposition, to find the Will is, according to this 
school, not very difficult. The Will, it is to be observed, is, 
in their view, not a faculty but " a peculiar state of mind or 
consciousness" [Mill, Analysis, vol. ii. p. 328], that, namely, 
which precedes an action. It is the cause of the action, in 



MENTAL STATES PRECEDING ACTION. 165 

the proper sense of the word, that is, its immediate antecedent. 
The notion that it is a faculty has arisen from the common 
mental illusion in subjection to which, not content with having 
found the cause of a phenomena, we proceed to invest it with 
a certain imaginary Power, in virtue of which alone it is said 
to produce its effect. This emanation from, or property of, 
the cause Mill pronounces to be a fiction. To determine the 
nature of the Will, we have merely to " discover which is the 
real state of mind which immediately precedes an action." 

Now actions, says Mill, may be either those of the Body, 
or those of the Mind. 1 The former are muscular contractions, 
and may be preceded either hy Sensations — as in the familiar 
cases of sneezing, vomiting, coughing, and other involun- 
tary or instinctive movements — or by Ideas, as in yawning, 
laughter, convulsive fits, on seeing another j>erson yawn, 
laugh, or fall into convulsions; or again in the case where 
a person rapidly shuts his eyelids on seeing an object approach 
them, which action is consequent on the idea of pain called 
up by the sight of the object. This last is a good example of 
association, because an infant will not wink if anything is 
passed rapidly before its eyes, while an adult will. 2 

When these contractions of the muscles are preceded by 
Sensations, the steps are (1) sensation originating in the ex- 
tremities of the nerves, (2) " something, we know not what 
conveyed by the nerves to the brain," (3) a consequent state 
of the brain, (4) something (also unknown) conveyed by the 
brain through another set of nerves to the contracting muscles, 

1 " A vile phrase " this — " actions of the mind." It is curious how, 
in this instance, Mill shows himself under the bondage of that habit of 
constructing metaphor, which he elsewhere (using, too, this very example) 
so severely reprobates in others. 

- The experiment was performed by Mr. Darwin on his own child, with 
this result. See his interesting a ccount of these psychological observa- 
tions in Mind, No. 7, {a Biographical Sketch of an Infant). 



1 66 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



followed by (5) muscular contraction. When they are pre- 
ceded by Ideas, the first two steps are not present, and the 
process begins with the third, or with a certain state of the 
brain. It will be seen, therefore, that in both cases the state 
of the brain is, strictly speaking", the immediate mental ante- 
cedent of the contraction : but, for purposes of the present 
investigation, that state may be distinguished as Sensation or 
as Ideation, according as it is, or is not, produced by external 
causes operating directly upon the nerves. The principle of 
those mental phenomena of the latter class which result from 
the tendency to imitate the actions, and experience in our 
own persons the sensations of another, — a species of pheno- 
mena familiar to physicians, under the name of imaginative 
diseases, — is that the action, motion, or bodily state, the idea 
of which is conveyed, to us by what we thus perceive in others, 
" calls up by association the idea of the feelings which pre- 
cede" that action, motion, or bodily state. "The idea of the 
feelings exists, and the action follows/'' [Analysis, vol. ii. 
p. 343.] 

Sensations and Ideas, then, are to be considered as the 
immediate mental antecedents of muscular contraction. Now 
over sensations we confessedly have no control : they may 
therefore be dismissed from consideration : and the kind of 
ideation, hitherto discussed as antecedent to action, clearly 
does not answer to what we mean by an exercise of the Will. 
So much only has been established up to the present point : 
that muscular contractions follow ideas, that to obtain a com- 
mand over the former we must obtain a command over the 
latter, and that to produce certain sequences of associated 
motions, we must have acquired the power, through repetition, 
or otherwise, of readily calling up the correspondingly asso- 
ciated ideas. The power of the Will is not, therefore, exerted 
over the motions, but over the ideas, or trains of ideas which 



THE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 167 

precede those motions. The motions or actions which we 
will must of course be our own, and therefore one at least of 
the ideas constituting the state of volition must be the idea of 
such an action as our own. 

Is there anything more involved in Volition than the above 
elements? Now in the cases already noticed of the ideas of 
our actions preceding these actions, whether in the way of 
automatic imitation or of repetition, we cannot be said to will 
them. They are as involuntary (at all events in the adult 
mind) as those motions which are excited by our own sensa- 
tions in the manner already indicated. But it is ideas alone 
in any case which give birth to action : there must therefore 
be something in the process by which these ideas are gene- 
rated, when we are said to exercise volition, different from the 
process whereby these ideas are generated when the acts which 
follow them are, as in the above instances, styled involuntary. 
In the latter case they are produced in the way of ordinary 
association whether by sensations of our own, or by the ideas 
of the sensations of others (as when we yawn or laugh on 
seeing another person do so), or by our own ideas, as when 
we weep on reading a tragedy. But in none of these instances, 
can we be said to will the performance of the acts. But where 
strictly voluntary actions are concerned, the ideas of them, — 
the ideas which precede them, — are accompanied with Desire, 
which is their distinguishing- feature. Now Desire is the idea 
of a future pleasurable sensation, or exemption from pain. 
Therefore in the state of mind which precedes what are called 
voluntary actions, there must coexist, (1) the idea of the 
action, and the idea of it, of course, as our own, (2) the idea 
of the pleasurable condition to be enjoyed by us consequent on 
the performance of the action. In other words, we must have 
the idea of a future pleasurable state coupled with the idea 
of an act of ours as causing it. But this is exactly what 



:6S HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



Motive was defined as being*. Is then Motive the same as 
AVill ? No. The difference is the following. 

In the train of thoughts constituting the Motive, (as Mill, 
in a careful elaboration of a well-known Aristotelian principle, 3 
points out), we start with the idea of the pleasurable sensa- 
tion to be obtained, proceed from it to the idea of the action 
of which it is contemplated as being the immediate result, 
then to the idea of the step next preceding it, and so on 
through the ideas of a series of means, till we come to the last 
link in the chain which ends with ourselves, that is, to the 
idea of some muscular contraction on our part. Now when 
mere Motive, unaccompanied by Volition, is present, the pro- 
cess of association stops at this point ; whereas when the 
Motive is sufficiently powerful to generate volition, it does 
not cease, but the mind passes from the idea of some muscular 
contraction on our part, to the idea of the internal sensations 
preceding the muscular contraction, which sensations origi- 
nally produced similar muscular contractions. On this the 
action follows. It -may seem somewhat over-subtle to draw 
such a fine line of distinction between the idea of the outward 
appearance of our own action and the idea of the internal sensa- 
tions which precede that action. But Mill explains that 
these sensations, and their ideas, — though scarcely ever noticed 
or even thought to exist, owing to their inevitable absorption 
in immediately subsequent sensations and ideas, of far greater 
interest to us, — are yet real. Why the visible idea of an 
action should at one time call up the idea of the internal 
sensations preceding it, and at another time not, can only be 

3 "o Trpwrov ev avakvcrei icr^arov ev eupecrei.' 5 The order of execution is 
the reverse of the order of thoughts in volition. In the former case, we 
begin with a muscular contraction on our part, and end with the pleasurable 
condition. In the latter, our first idea is that of the pleasurable condition, 
from which we work backwards. 



CAN WILL CONTROL THOUGHT? 169 

explained on principles of association. A strong connexion 
between the two ideas is formed in some cases, so that the 
one cannot come into existence without exciting the other, 
whereas, in others, no such indissoluble, or nearly indissoluble, 
association has been generated. This analysis of the Will 
regarded as a state of mind preceding muscular contraction is 
partly an amplification, and partly a condensation, of Hartley's 
theory of the association of motions, 4 and of the growth of 
voluntary out of automatic motions, (such as are produced by 
internal sensations), and again of "secondarily automatic " 
motions out of voluntary. 5 [Anal. vol. ii. pp. 355, 356. 
J. S. Mill's note.] 

But we have yet to consider the Will as a state of conscious- 
ness antecedent to what Mill calls " the actions of the mind. 33 
We seem to ourselves to have the power of calling up an idea 
at will, or of forcing one train of thought into existence to 
the exclusion of others. Is this power over our mental asso- 
ciations real or imaginary ? Are the processes of Recollection, 
as distinguished from Memory, and of Attention, as distin- 
guished from mere passive thought or reverie, cases of Voli- 
tion or not ? If they are, then can the Will in these, as in 
the other cases already examined, be reduced to association, or 
is it something' which controls association itself? 

If the Will controls association, it must do so in one of 
two ways, — either in virtue of some power which it possesses 
of calling up an idea "ex nihilo," so to speak, or in virtue of 
a power of making one idea present to the mind at any time 

4 These Hartley considers pari passu (in the earlier part of his work) 
with the association of sensations and ideas. The title of his short Latin 
tractate, De Sensu, Motu, et Idearum Generatione, shows the triple 
application which he designed for his system. 

5 E.g. a child moves, first of all, spasmodically and under the stimulus 
of sensation ; then it learns to regulate its movements, lastly to employ 
them without conscious volition, as in walking. 



170 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

call up another, not then present to the mind, to succeed it, 
and of simultaneously excluding all ideas which would inter- 
fere with the sequence of ideas desired. But we have already 
explained that we cannot will to evoke any particular idea, 
without already having that idea in our minds. And to will 
a particular sequence of ideas equally, of course, presupposes 
the presence of that sequence to our minds. We can no more 
will the introduction of an idea into a train at a particular 
point, than we can will its presence at all, indeed, much less. 
In either case we may be said to desire, but never to will. 
We desire, for instance, to recollect a thing ; we are not pro- 
perly said to will to recollect it. The discovery of the lost 
idea is contemplated by us as the cause of future pleasure, or 
is associated with the idea of that future pleasure, and, as 
such, becomes interesting to us. Now interesting, as con- 
trasted with indifferent, ideas have this peculiar property, 
that they call up trains of great length, rapidity, and com- 
plexity, and are themselves suggested by most of the ideas 
which may enter the mind from whatever quarter. In the 
attempt to recollect, accordingly, the idea of the alleviation 
of an existing unsatisfied state of mind obtrudes itself into 
every train of ideas which would otherwise run its usual 
course, and itself excites a large variety of trains of all kinds, 
until that alleviation is obtained, and, with it, the wished-for 
pleasurable sensations. This phenomenon, a familiar enough 
one, has already occupied our attention. 

In regard to the process of Attention, there certainly seems 
at first sight to be more plausibility in the view of those who 
hold that we can will to attend, or not to attend, to a thing. 
But here too, according to Mill, the so-called act of Will 
except as a case of association, is found not to exist. 

We may attend either to Sensations or to Ideas. Sensa- 
tions are either in themselves indifferent, that is, apart from 



ATTEXTIOX. 171 



any ideas associated with them, or interesting (whether as 
pleasurable or painful). 

Now to attend to sensations interesting in themselves is, as 
has often been remarked before, the same thing as having the 
sensations. " To attend to sensations indifferent in them- 
selves" is on the other hand as palpably contradictory a-n 
expression, as "to attend to sensations interesting in them- 
selves," is redundant and tautological. If sensations are 
attended to, they are not indifferent in themselves : if they 
are interesting in themselves, they must necessarily be 
attended to in the fact of experiencing them. But we may 
attend to sensations indifferent in themselves, but rendered 
interesting by the ideas associated with them; just as, con- 
versely, we may feel, without attending to, sensations which, 
though interesting under ordinary circumstances and in them- 
selves, are on the particular occasion absorbed in stronger 
sensations or more vivid ideas (as in the well-known example 
of men in battle fighting while quite unconscious of their 
wounds). The attention to a sensation rendered interesting 
by association no more differs from the having the association, 
than the attention to a sensation interesting in itself differs 
from the having the sensation, or, again, than the non-atten- 
tion to a sensation interesting in itself differs from the having 
that sensation accompanied by, and swallowed up in, stronger 
simultaneous sensations or ideas. 

Exactly the same reasoning applies "mutatis mutandis" 
to the phenomenon of attention to Ideas. Attention to an 
interesting idea is merely the having it ; — to an indifferent 
idea, merely the associating it with some idea which is not 
indifferent. By way of illustrating his theory of attention as 
applied to ideas, Mill takes the case of a man composing a 
treatise or discourse with a given object, where the discovery 
of a single idea (as in the attempt to recollect) will not suffice 



172 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL 



to accomplish the desired end, but where the discovery and 
selection of a variety of trains of ideas is necessary. Here the 
interesting idea of the pleasure consequent upon the attain- 
ment of the end is continually being suggested by, and 
suggesting, large varieties of ideas and sequences of ideas, in 
precisely the same way as, but to a greater extent than, the 
idea of such a pleasurable state calls up a single idea in suc- 
cessful, and tends to call it up in unsuccessful, efforts of recol- 
lection. Of the same kind as this is the still more compli- 
cated example of an aim of life ruling a man's actions from 
day to day, where the Idea of the End to be obtained asso- 
ciates itself in his mind with all the ideas and trains of ideas 
of all those actions of his which may contribute to the realiza- 
tion of that end. The conclusion is that, when we attend to 
Ideas, just as when we attend to Sensations, the attention is 
due to the occurrence or recurrence of interesting sensations 
or ideas, whether interesting per se, or as forming part of 
an associated cluster, some of the other ingredients of which 
are interesting per se, and, as such, have given a reflected 
interest to the entire cluster. 

We cannot better sum up the results of this analysis of 
Volition than in James Mill's own words [Anal. vol. ii. 
pp. 378, 379] : — " In regard, then, to that state of mind 
which precedes action, we seem to have ascertained the 
following indisputable facts : That actions are in some 
instances preceded by sensations; that, in other instances, 
they are preceded by ideas ; that in all cases in which the 
action is said to be willed, it is desired as a means to an end ; 
or, in more accurate language, is associated, as cause, with 
pleasure as effect : that the idea of the outward appearance of 
the action, thus excited by association, excites in the same 
way, the idea of the internal feelings which are the immediate 
antecedent of the action, and then the action takes place ; 



INTENTION. i ;3 



that whatever power we may possess over the actions of our 
muscles, must be derived from our power over our associations ; 
and that this power over our associations, when fully analyzed, 
means nothing' more than the power of certain interesting 
ideas, originating" in interesting sensations, and formed into 
strength by association. - " 

Mill disposes of Intention in the same way as Bentham. 
It differs from Will, in that an action willed is some action 
of ours contemplated as immediately about to take place ; 
whereas the action intended, though still some action of our 
own, is contemplated as about to take place after the inter- 
vention of a certain train or series of events. To look forward 
to or anticipate a certain chain of antecedents and conse- 
quents, the last consequent of which is an action to be first 
willed by us, and then performed, is all that is meant by 
Intention. We believe that at some future time we shall 
will to perform, and shall eventually perform, the intended 
action. We cannot, of course, properly be said to will such an 
action, or even to will to will at some future time to perform the 
action. Such a fancy arises from the illusory character of the 
term, which, being active in form, appears to imply some 
activity in fact ; whereas, in reality, intention is merely a case 
of belief : it is " the strong anticipation of a future will " 
\_Anal. vol. ii. p. 399]. A promise, consequently, is merely a 
declaration of this belief, — a declaration of such a character 
that it derives from customary, legal, and moral sanctions, 
and carries with it, a strong guarantee that the declared 
mticipation will be realized. But, besides intending an 
action, we are frequently said, in the language both of law 
and of morals, to intend the consequences of an act. By this 
is meant the foreseeing or anticipation of the consequences, at 
the moment of willing or intending the act. By this latter, 
again, as we have seen in discussing that form of Belief which 



174 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

is called Anticipation, is meant that the idea of the action 
calls up the idea of its consequences. Though Mill does not 
specifically refer to the questions of Free Will and Necessity, 
which have so vexed the minds of moralists at different times, 
there can be little doubt — judging from his analysis of 
Volition — that he would have adopted what Hartley calls the 
theory of the Mechanism of the Human Mind, as opposed to 
that of Free Will, in any but the popular use of the word. 
For Hartley carefully distinguishes the philosophical doctrine 
of Free Will, according to which it is held possible for a man 
to will either of two actions while the circumstances attendant 
upon, and previous to, the exercise of his will, remain the 
same, from the popular doctrine, which amounts merely to the 
tautological proposition that a man has the power of doing 
that which he wills or desires, or has the power of "de- 
liberating, suspending, choosing, &c," between various 
courses of action. The latter Hartley does not dispute, but 
maintains in opposition to the former, what on examination 
appears to be equally tautological, that a man is infallibly de- 
termined by the strongest motive to action, and that when 
the motives are the same the action consequent upon them 
must be the same in the same man. This appears to be 
nothing more than the statement that a man wills what he 
does will, desires what he does desire. The further question 
as to who or what determines the motive, granting that the 
motive determines the action, is not satisfactorily answered 
by Hartley, because (in common with most associationists) he 
is inoculated with the misconception of a motive as a force 
operating upon the individual " ab extra/' and not as an 
object in itself indifferent taken up into, and made part of, 
the Self; and so endowed by the Self, and the Self alone, with 
motive power. " By the mechanism of human actions, I 
mean/' says Hartley, " that each action results from the 



HARTLEY'S MECHANICAL THEORY. 175 

previous circumstances of body and mind, in the same 
manner and with the same certainty, as other effects do 
from their mechanical causes." [Observ. on Man, vol. i. 
p. 500]. This proposition he supports by an appeal to each 
man's introspection of his own acts and states of conscious- 
ness 6 and observation of the acts of others. Neither method, 
he says, will discover any act to be unmotived, nor in the 
event of conflict will the weaker motive ever be seen to over- 
ride the stronger. 7 Apart from this appeal to experience and 
self-scrutiny, Hartley relies once more on his vibration 
theory. Actions result from vibrations " in the nerves of the 
muscles •" and these vibrations result from others which are 
either completely mechanical, or which, though now voluntary, 
have become so, from being originally mechanical, by means 
of association. 

The sum of the objections raised against the mechanical 
theory was, in Hartley's time, not so much metaphj'sical or 
psychological as practical. This theory, it was said, gets rid 
of the notion of personal responsibility. We shall never refer 
actions to an Ego, if we are taught to believe that the state 
of the Ego which determines the action is itself determined 
by a series of prior circumstances. Such objections are of 
course quite unphilosophical, and are calculated to divert the 
attention from the real issue. Hartley would have done well 

6 Such an introspection has been made, and the results given in an 
essay called " An Introspective Investigation," Mind, Xo. 5, p. 22, seq., 
by Mr, Travis. He does not come to the same conclusion as Hartley. 

7 This latter statement is again tautological or circular. For how can 
we tell the strength of one motive as compared with that of another 
except from its effect upon action? As to unmotived acts, they are 
recognized by no school of philosophy, no school of art even. Even in 
Iago we find the "motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity" (as 
Coleridge calls it) which testifies to this law of nature, while seeming to 
violate it. 



6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



not to notice them. The practical outcome of a theory has 
nothing 1 to do with its truth. But it was characteristic of the 
limes in which he lived both to advocate and to combat 
systems with a reference to results : and just as every new 
metaphysics (such as that of Berkeley, for instance) was at 
this period generally prefaced with some anti-atheistic flourish 
to gain it admittance among the ingenuous respectabilities of 
" thinking gentlemen/'' so Hartley, like the rest, was at 
great pains to show, first of all, that the ordinary sentiments 
of gratitude and resentment towards our fellow-creatures as 
responsible agents do in fact remain in force, notwithstanding 
all theories and analyses : but he added secondly, that so far 
as this is not the case, it is right and proper, even in a prac- 
tical reference, that it should not be, and operates for the 
advantage, and not the detriment, of morality. For just as 
an infant, or a savage tribe, begins by exhibiting gratitude or 
resentment towards inanimate objects regarded as causes of* 
his pleasures and pains, but gradually learns, the one on 
reaching maturity, the other on attaining some degree of 
civilization, to transfer such affections to the human beings 
who produce or use those objects ; so man in general will, on 
learning to regard his fellow-men as links in a chain, — in 
the light of consequents as well as in that of antecedents, — 
reach a still higher order of intelligence and morality. We 
laugh at Xerxes for lashing the Hellespont, and are amused 
at a child for kicking and abusing the chair over which he 
has just stumbled : but we have yet to learn to treat human 
beings with the like equanimity to that which we think 
Xerxes should have displayed towards the storm on the Helles- 
pont, as the product of natural forces, or the child towards 
the chair, as matter misplaced. 8 Such a mental attitude 

8 Hartley in fact thought that there could he an exaggerated Animism (as 
it is now called) in relation to human beings, as well as to inanimate objects. 



HARTLEY'S MECHANICAL THEORY. 177 

stimulates attention to the high interests of Education, and 
leads our thoughts away from resentment against individuals, 
to the reform of the circumstances, and mitigation of the 
influences, which have made them what they are. 9 It thus 
begets humility in ourselves, and further " tends to remove 
the great difficulty of reconciling the prescience of God with 
the freewill of man. For it takes away c philosophical free- 
will/ * [as Hartley calls the imaginary rival doctrine of un- 
motived willing], "and the practical" [or popular] " is con- 
sistent with God's prescience." [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 
510.] « 

9 This is a more familiar idea now than it was in Hartley's time. Not 
philosophy only, but art and fiction (cp. Victor Hugo's Jean Yaljean) 
have inculcated it strenuously. It finds its " redactio ad absurdum " in 
Mr. Butler's Ereii'xc-,1. 

1 On this mechanical theor* of Hartiej^'s, see Mr. Leslie Stephen's 
remarks {History of English Tksvghi in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii 
sect. 07). 



i;8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE PRACTICAL LAWS OP ETHICS AS RESULTING FROM THE 
PRINCIPLES OP ASSOCIATION AND UTILITY. 

Having considered the answers of Hartley and Mill to the 
question — " how do we act ? " it remains to collect from 
scattered hints their probable answer to the question, which 
only the former has dealt with specifically — indeed it was 
no part of Mill's proposed object to do so— namely, " how 
ought we to act ? " "What should be the rule or guiding 
principle of life ? 

At the end of his Analysis Mill suggests that, since all 
valid practical rules are founded on true theory, the works 
which ought to follow on an exposition or true theory of 
the operations of the human mind both in its intellectual 
and moral aspects, are works containing (1) rules for guiding 
the mind in its search after truth, (2 rules for training the 
individual to the greatest excellence of his nature, and (3) 
" rules for regulating the actions of human being/' These 
would be respectively the Book of Logic, the Book of 
Education, and the Book of Ethics, to which might be added 
(if not included under Ethics) the Book of Politics. These 
would furnish the entire fabric capable of being reared on 
the basis of a sound theory of the human mind. On Educa- 
tion and Politics, Mill has a good deal of matter, elsewhere 
than in the Analysis, to which we shall have occasion 
to refer presently. On Logic he has nothing; and as re- 



UTILITY. i ; 9 



gards Ethical rules we have to gather his views from his 
criticisms of his opponents contained in the Fragment on 
Mackintosh; while those of Hartley on the same topic are 
to be found, mixed up with a large mass of theological and 
other speculations, in the second volume of his work On 
Ma 7i. 

Mill's conception of morality is evident from his description 
of ethics, as "rules for regulating the actions of human 
beings, so as to deduce from them the greatest amount of 
good, both to the actor himself, and to his fellow-creatures 
at large" [A?ial. vo\. ii. p. 403]. He holds not only that 
men do act for their own interests, but that they ought to 
do so ; but then Education, to which he attaches very great 
importance, steps in, and shows what their highest interests 
are. It shows that man best secures his own ultimate ad- 
vantage by not directly and consciously -seeking it, but b^ 
working for the good of his fellow-men. TKjs tnougn ?ivor^ 
action is in the last resort referable to self-interest, its primary 
and immediate aim in practice should be utilitarian, in the 
modern sense of the word, or conducive to the good of the 
largest possible number. To adopt Hartley's phraseology, our 
actions at first, and during infancy, for the attainment of self- 
gratification are primarily automatic ; then by practice, and 
owing to the influence of education, we learn to associate 
ideas of self-interest of the higher kinds with the ideas of 
actions productive of good to others, and so accustom our- 
selves gradually to the voluntary, and at first troublesome, 
actions dictated by considerations of general utility; which 
latter again, after frequent repetition, became automatic in 
the sense that we no more think of self-interest at the time 
of performing them, than the miser, when making an addition 
to his hoard, thinks of realizing the possibilities of pleasure 
which that hoard symbolizes. To analyze any of the complex 

N 2 



180 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

faculties and tendencies of human nature, is not to deny their 
existence or effectuality, but merely to point out their ulti- 
mate justification. " Gratitude remains gratitude," says 
Mill, [Frag, on Mackhitos/i, p. 51], like his predecessor, 
"resentment remains resentment, generosity, generosity, in 
the mind of him who feels them, after analysis, the same as 
before." 

For the perception of the useful results likely to flow from 
certain classes of actions, the ordinary feelings and under- 
standing of men suffice. No special sense, such as the 
hypothetical Moral Sense, is required. [Fr.on Mach, p. 11]. 
If and whenever a man has not contemplated the consequences 
of his act as likely or calculated to produce good to others 
or to himself, " the man's act may be a grateful act, or an 
affectionate act, but certainly not a moral act." [Fr. on 
Mack., pp. 55, 236, 237]. An act has no ethical value, 
apart from its intended consequences; and it lies on the 
opponents of utilitarianism to show what morality is apart 
from utility. 

It is no objection to the practical rules founded upon 
utilitarian doctrines that, according to them, calculation must 
precede action ; but that this balancing of consequences, to be 
just, must be infinite, since the consequences are infinite both 
in extent and in time, as well as infinitely complicated ; and 
that, therefore, action will never take place at all. It is true 
that every act reaches out into an indefinite future with 
innumerable ramifications of consequences ; just as the distur- 
bance of air by the motion of a man's hand may conceivably 
produce some effect on the remotest planet : but no man is 
expected to attempt to calculate these, though on the other 
hand, if he looks carelessly to the probable immediate con- 
sequences of his acts, he is justly responsible for all those 
which he might have foreseen by the exercise of reasonable 



CALCULA TION IN MORALS. 181 

care, and did not. In all cases where the more lengthy 
calculations would be impossible or inconvenient, it will be 
found that they have been done for us beforehand with suffi- 
cient correctness for practical purposes by the collective 
experience of humanity extending through past ages. A 
man may act either upon certain general rules, such for in- 
stance as those of the cardinal virtues, and in accordance with 
certain formed habits, [Fr. on Mack., p. 258], and be (so 
far) absolved from the necessity of reflection or computation 
of consequences, [p. 163]. Where however circumstances 
arise which do not come within the ordinary classes of moral 
rules, there he must balance probabilities and effects for 
himself: habit will not suffice, [p. 257]. The nature and 
complexity of the calculation must, of course, be limited by 
the urgency of the case. But moral sentiments, intuitions, 
&c, Mill utterly discards. 1 The moral agent must in all 
cases either calculate for himself, or accept the previously 
formed and recognized calculations of others or (as in habitual 
acts) of himself. He must proceed, like a natural philosopher, 
who bases his laws on proper inductions, inferences, and 
analogies, though no one blames him for adopting from 
others (without proving again) the results of mathematical 
processes, where it is necessary or convenient to do so. Mill 
follows Bentham in thinking that the morality of an act in 
no way depends upon the motive, which in itself is colour- 
less, and only derives its complexion from the consequences 



1 Cp. Fr. on Hack., 267, 268. Mill ridicules the sentiment of Andrew- 
Fletcher (approved by Sir James Mackintosh) to the effect that "lie 
would lose his life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to 
save it." A refusal of the latter kind Mill would presumably consider 
immoral. So also, we imagine, would he repudiate Kant's well-known 
assertion of the duty of telling the truth to a murderer about the hiding- 
place of his intended victim. 



1 82 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

contemplated by the agent, or neglected to be contemplated 
by him. [Fr. on Mack., pp. 161, 315, 316]. 

Granting then that the proper aim of man is to contem- 
plate, intend, calculate the good of his fellow-creatures, — the 
object of Education, Government, and Legislation should be 
to lead men to take into view wider and wider circles, in 
considering the benefits to be thus conferred, and their re- 
cipients. Man must be taught to put philanthropy above 
patriotism, patriotism above party-spirit, party-spirit above 
individual gratification. Imitation and Custom tend to re- 
strict men's benevolence to the limits within which their 
lives and habits have grown up. The incentives to keep 
within these bounds are strong : it should be the function 
and aim of Education to supply yet stronger incentives to 
transcend them. [Fr. on Made, 64, 65]. "The man whom 
his education or other fortunate circumstances have habituated 
to the ideas of the good of one of the larger communities 
of men, a nation; and to consider the interests of small 
societies, and of individuals as subordinate to the interests in 
which each and all of the other individuals and societies 
composing the great communities participate ; the man who 
has learnt to fix his esteem upon the actions which promote 
these great interests, and in whom the motives to the per- 
formance of such actions overpower all other motives, is the 
only man who has reached the elevation of true morality." 

Regarding then utility as the test of morality, and not 
morality of utility, as Sir James Mackintosh says is possible 
u in another way/' Mill cannot sufficiently express his con- 
tempt for the theory which ascribes aims to appetites, over 
which conscience has a controlling and legislative authority. 2 

2 Butler's theory, approved by Mackintosh. Cp. Hooker's similar 
opinion about the Will: — " Appetite is the Will's solicitor, and Will is 
the Appetite's controller." 



IMITA TION- CUS TOM— ED UCA TION. i S 3 

AH this he thinks merely so much metaphor, of a very 
misleading* character. When it is said that the appetites 
aim, all that is meant is that a man has a certain appetite, 
and aims at its gratification. When it is said that conscience 
possesses a controlling power over appetite, all that is meant 
is that the man who has the appetites has also the right to 
control them, which nobody denies. The question of ethics, 
however, is, — " in w 7 hat way ought we to control them ? " 
And to this of course Mill's answer is clear : we must control 
them in a manner calculated to confer benefit on others or on 
the agent himself. [Ft, on MacJc., 72, 73]. Still less will 
Mill allow actions to be properly called beautiful or ugly, 
unless their beauty or ugliness be regarded as consisting 
simply and solely in the character of their consequences. 
[p. 263]. The artistic aspect of ethics, if it exists at all, 
should be kept in the background, as illusionary and tending 
to emasculate moral energy. Similarly " Fitness/' which 
some ascribe as their distinguishing feature to moral 
actions, is either the utility of their effects, or it is an 
unmeaning phrase. So too of Right Reason, and the like, 
[p. 265]. 

The same considerations which dictate action, also dictate 
and justify moral approbation. The conscious employment of 
moral approbation is grounded on utilitarian motives. Men 
have agreed, thinks Mill, to affix marks of praise or blame 
to certain classes of actions, which they have perceived to be 
advantageous or the reverse in their effects, in order that 
with them may be associated such pleasurable or painful 
ideas, respectively, as may induce to, or deter from, the per- 
formance of them. On the building up of such associative 
links depends the value of Education ; since children must 
necessarily act largely on such associations, and not so much 
with a view to computed consequences. But, further, the 



[84 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



"unent of moral approbation is justified ultimately, if not 
immediately, by this same reference to utility, — to the con- 
sequences, that is, observed as likely to flow from the act 
approved of, or observed as having flown in other instances 
from the class of acts to which the act approved of belongs. 
Approbation is thus both justifiable as a sentiment, and obli- 
gatory as an action. We in fact extol certain acts, because 
of their beneficial issues : we ought to extol them, in order 
to induce others to perform acts like them. [_FV. on Mack., 
pp. 249-254, 259-261]. 

Mill is careful to disavow the limitation of the words 
" interest," " pleasure/' and the like, which the opponents of 
Utilitarianism seek to father on the system. When it is said 
that men ought to seek the benefit of others, and equally 
when it is said that, in the last resort, they aim in every 
action to secure their own interests, it is to be understood 
that "the principle of utility takes in every ingredient 
wherein human happiness consists" [Fr. on Mack., pp. 271, 
272], and that its advocates do not (formally at least) pre- 
tend to disregard the pleasures of taste, and the arts de- 
pendent upon imagination. In Hartley's system however 
even this formal disavowal, as regards art, is very qualified, 
if not withheld. (See Observ. on Man, vol. ii. ch. 3, sec. 3, 
On the Pleasures of Imagination). 

To sum up then : every person before action, if he is to 
act morally, should either contemplate himself its conse- 
quences., or adopt those fixed opinions which interpret the 
experience of mankind in reference to the particular case : if 
these consequences are found to be likely to bring advantage 
to others, or to himself, unbalanced by evil, the action should 
be performed, if not, not. And under Utility, Advantage, 
Good, Interest is included everything from which men derive 
satisfaction. The object of the act is not to form good Dis- 



COMPREHENSIVE MEANING OF INTEREST. 185 

positions/ nor is it to realize so-called moral beauty, fitness, 
&C.j nor to produce a certain state of will ; but it is simply 
and solely to procure good for others, or for the agent himself. 
There is nothing, for instance, in the disposition, habit, senti- 
ment, or state of will, involved in the term Courage, in itself 
good or bad, apart from the consequences of the courageous 
acts which result from it. If it be asked why we do not 
ascribe morality to all actions which produce good to the 
agent (such as eating or drinking) or to others (such as the 
ordinary courtesies of civilized life), the answer is that Moral 
Approbation is bestowed u only where it is needed ; not on 
acts the performance of which is provided for by the constitu- 
tion of the individual, but on acts, the performance of which 
society needs, by the use of means, to secure; of which means 
its approbation is one of the most powerful.-" [Fr. on Mack., 
p. 368] . In all actions there is nothing in itself moral or 
immoral in either the motive, the volition, or the external act 
(physically regarded) . That which is moral is the expectation 
in the mind of the agent of consequences, beneficial or other- 
wise. [Fr. on Mack., p. 321]. 

Hartley deals with the practical rules of morality in a more 
diffusive and gossiping manner, and with greater particularity 
of detail and variety of illustration, than Mill. It will not be 
at all necessary to follow him closely through his somewhat 
rambling amplification of what the later philosopher states m 
general and concise terms. Hartley's remarks here would 
equally well fit almost any moral system that could be named. 

3 It may be urged that one social affection strengthens another, and 
that therefore there is an object in cultivating affections and dispositions. 
But this argument too is grounded on utility in the last resort ; besides 
which, it is not true that a man quiet and humble in private life, for 
instance, is necessarily so in public. Tyranny in political life may be 
accompanied by strongly developed family feeling. 



IS6 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

In bis case, in fact, as in that of so many other Utilitarians, 
the old objection at this point strikes us with peculiar force, 
that what is new in his opinions is not true, and what is true 
in them is not new. Men should pursue their own interests. 
What is meant by interests ? Everything* that for any 
reason or with any object in view they have at any time a 
desire to do. After such a comprehensive definition, the most 
adverse schools of philosophy must perforce agree. Then 
comes the further question, over which the battle is really to 
be fought, namely, what ought their interests to be ? What 
ought a person to like or desire? The answer of Utili- 
tarianism, both as represented by Hartley one of its earliest, 
and by J. S. Mill one of its latest, exponents, is the same : 
he should like what other people like, and do what other 
people do. Humanity has found out what is best for itself. 
Follow its experience. 

Hartley expressly says that the rule of life must be ex- 
tracted, firstly, from the opinions held, and secondly, though 
in a less degree, from the practice obtaining among mankind 
in general. He would add to these the testimony of religion, 
natural and revealed, were it not that he is anxious to lay down 
a basis which may equally suit all classes of thinkers. " Even 
atheistical and sceptical persons " can, he thinks, have no objec- 
tion to his first principle, that, from the infancy of their race, 
men have sought happiness ; that, allowing for a fluctuating 
margin, their methods of attaining to it in practice have been 
constant and discoverable ; and that, where men's practice 
conflicts with their deliberate opinions, we have in the latter, 
as being unwarped by passion, even more certain guides on 
moral questions. [Observ. on Man, vol. ii. pp. 207 — 210]. 

The verdict of mankind's experience and opinions is that 
the right method of seeking our own advantage consists in 
attempts to secure the happiness of our neighbour. All mere 



HARTLEY OX THE IXTERESTS OF MAX. 187 

and gross self-interest may, says Hartley, be roughly put 
down as vice, all advancement of the interests of our neigh- 
bour as virtue. He does not (with Mandeville) consider 
private vices to be public good, but public misfortune. And 
- to bow both private and public virtues should best be 
practised, the common sense and judgment of mankind has 
determined for us already. 

It will thus be seen that Hartley leaves considerably less to 
the calculative element in morality than Mill, and follows 
much more unquestioningly the common verdict of men of all 
ways of thinking in different countries at different times. He 
is not so much at variance with the ethics of the past. He, 
like Mill, thought the times " out of joint/' and foresaw a 
general upheaval of society drawing near [vol. ii. pp. 440, 
" . but his recipe for "setting right" the times was to revert 
to the old morality which, though accepting in theory, men were 
neglecting in fact; while Mill, on the other hand, considered 
the ethical principles existing in his time to be radically- 
wrong in theory, and therefore also in practice, and for that 
purpose wished, as Plato wished before him, to revolutionize 
Politics, Legislation, and Education. 

Hartley conceives the graduation of the various interests of 
man in point of moral dignity to be exactly in inverse order 
to their arrangement in point of physical and historical de- 
velopment. The latter order is (as has already been pointed 
out), (1) those of sensation, (2) those of imagination, (3) those 
of ambition, (4) those of self-interest, gross, refined, and 
oal, (5) those of sympathy, (6) those of theopathy, (7) 
those of the moral sense, the last-named being not so much 
something apart from the rest as the consummation of them 
all. All these classes are to be successively referred for their 
justification on association principles to the class immediately 
preceding ; so that the fountain-head, so to speak, the ultimate 



i SS HAR TLB Y A ND J A MES MILL. 

and irreducible fact is sensation, and the interest attaching* 
to it. W r e seek the pleasures to be derived from works of 
art, because the ideas suggested by them are intimately 
associated with the ideas of sensation ; we pursue the pleasures 
of ambition because the ideas suggested by these are inti- 
mately allied with those of sensation and imagination both, 
and are generated by combinations of them ; and so on for 
the rest. 4 Conversely, in point of moral worth, the pleasures 
of sensation are of little importance, unless informed by those 
of imagination, those of imagination unless informed by 
those of ambition, and so on, till we arrive at the pleasures 
of theopathy, and finally to those of the moral sense, which 
include, regulate, and react upon all the rest. Hartley thus 
works out in the department of morals the Aristotelian 
contrast between what is first in the order of growth, and 
what is first in the order of reality and dignity. 5 We begin 
by desiring the gratification of our most primitive instincts, 
and we end by the renunciation of the self in one sense in 
order to realize it in another. Throughout our lives we are 
continually rising " on stepping-stones Of our dead selves to 
higher things." Our own interest is always our proper and 
legitimate object; but the content and conception of that 



4 Mr. Leslie Stephen [Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth 
Century, ii. 67] neatly expresses Hartley's meaning : " in mathematical 
language it may be said that six equations arise from stating each of the 
latter six classes in terms of all the others; and thus it is possible to 
determine every one of the other classes as functions of the primitive 
sensations." 

5 " Now which way soever we turn our view, that which is prior in the 
order of nature is always less perfect and principal, than that which is 
posterior, the last of two contiguous states being the end, the first the 
means subservient to that end, though itself be an end in respect to some 
foregoing state" [vol. ii. p. 213]. This is the Platonic and Aristotelian 
doctrine of rk\r] or final causes. 



SELF-REALIZA TlOiV. 189 

interest widens for us with each successive advance from the 
merest animal passion to the " apprehension of a god." 

With considerable elaboration Hartley goes through the 
various duties of man in connexion with the various species of 
pleasure, and shows that there is no one of these latter, which 
ought to be made a primary pursuit, at least till we come to 
the class of sympathetic pleasures, which may be primarily 
pursued, though even they should, in order to attain to 
perfection, be coloured and vivified by the sentiments of 
theopathy. The special rules laid down need not be detailed, 
as they are generally in close conformity with the dictates of 
ordinary morality. One or two peculiarities however, — of the 
man more than of the system — may be noticed. 

Hartley has an altogether Platonic distrust of any indul- 
gence of the imagination. He wishes it, and its works, to be 
curbed and suppressed to an extent which strikes one as 
puritanical, almost brutal. Like Plato, he will tolerate "sim- 
plicity, neatness, regularity, and justness of proportion" 
[vol. ii. p. 24-9] ; but any efforts of the artistic impulse beyond 
this he appears to think not only unnecessary, but evil, as 
fliverting the mind from the far more urgent interests of 
benevolence and the other sympathetic affections ; though he 
allows that, in default of any higher emotions, those excited 
by art draw off the mind from the grosser sensual pleasures, 
and fill up what would otherwise be moments of absolute 
idleness. Moreover, he will permit them, when brought into 
the service of religion. 5 But on the whole, " it is evident," 
he thinks [vol. ii. p. 25-3], "that most kinds of music, paint- 
ing, and poetry have close connexions with vice, particularly 
with the vices of intemperance and lewdness; that they re- 

6 He plainly says that " the polite arts are scarce to be allowed, except 
when consecrated to religious purposes " [vol. ii. p. 254]. Here again we 
are reminded of Plato's state-mythology, and state-poetry. 



igo HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

present them in gay, pleasing colours, or at least take off from 

the abhorrence due to them This is evident 

of public diversions, collections of pictures, academies for 
painting, statuary, &c, ancient heathen poetry, modern poetry 
of most kinds, plays, romances, Sec," and, further on, he adds 
somewhat shrewdly, that " the arts are apt to excite vanity, 
self-conceit, and mutual flatteries, in their votaries." Nor is 
he any tenderer to scientific pursuits ; 7 and he enjoins tem- 
perance in these studies also. It is evident that "high priests 
of science," and mutual admiration cliques in art, were no 
more unfamiliar in his day than in ours. His whole scheme 
of duties inclines to severity. In connexion with the pleasures 
of sensation, he recommends occasional fasting. In consider- 
ing the pleasures of ambition, and the desirability of humility, 
he counsels, in the spirit of the great satirist of the present 
day, the imposition on one's self of voluntary silence, and 
thinks it well "not to attempt to speak, unless a plain reason 
requires it." Another remarkable feature of his moral admo- 
nitions is the constant reference to Education as the necessary 
means of developing the right associations. 

7 " Nothing," he roundly asserts, " can easily exceed the vain-glory, 
self-conceit, arrogance, emulation, and envy, that are found in the eminent 
professors of the sciences, mathematics, philosophy, and even divinity 
itself." 



iqi 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ESTHETIC DOCTRINES OF HARTLEY AND MILL. 

\Ye have now found the answers of Hartley and James Mill 
to the questions, (1) how do we come to think? (2) how do 
we come to act ? (3) how ought we to act ? Having done 
with Thought and Moral Action, it remains to see what our 
philosophers have to say, — it is not much — on the subject of 
^Esthetic Emotion. In this last department, as in the others, 
Association is brought in as the prime solvent ; but no one can 
fail to notice with how little success, compared with that 
attending its application to the practical fields of human 
energy, and, in a less degree, to intellectual phenomena. There 
is something in art, and the feelings generated by the con- 
templation of its works, which eludes the Assoeiationist's 
dissecting knife; and it is remarkable how meagre, vague, 
and unsatisfactory all the attempts to interpret them by the 
light of such principles have been. 

In his remarks on the " Objects called Sublime and Beau- 
tiful and their Contraries, contemplated as Causes of our 
Pleasures and Pains/' [Anal. vol. ii. pp. 230 — 252], Mill follows 
closely Hartley's section on the genesis of the Pleasures and 
Pain of Imagination [05s. on Man, vol. i. pp. 418 — 442], and 
also Alison's u Essays on Taste/' quotations from whose work 
he liberally introduces. These three philosophers, it is need- 
less to say, account for the state of the human mind in the 
presence of the Beautiful and the Sublime, by the hypothesis 



i 9 2 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

that pleasurable ideas are associated with certain forms, curves, 
colours, or sounds in the mind of the person subject to the 
emotion : and that this association is due to the fact that on 
previous occasions, pleasurable sensations have been imparted 
to him by external objects possessing or emitting 1 such forms, 
curves, colours, or sounds. Where such a hypothesis cannot 
be shown to apply directly, we must argue from the known to 
the unknown, and presume that patient analysis will in time 
prove it to hold good in these cases also. 

Hartley proposes to consider under this head the pleasures 
arising, (1) from the beauty of the natural world, (2) from 
works of art, (3) from the liberal arts of music, painting, and 
poetry, (4) from the sciences, (5) from the beauty of the 
person, (6) from wit and humour, and also (7) the pains 
arising from gross absurdity, inconsistency, or deformity. This 
division is an example of Hartley's hopelessly clumsy and em- 
pirical way of treating a subject of this kind. (7) is obviously 
the converse of all the other classes; (5) should be included 
under (1), and (3) under (2), while (4) and (6) seem to be 
scarcely assignable at all to the pleasures of the imagination 
as a distinctive species. This leaves us the pleasures derived 
first, from the beauty of the natural world, secondly, from 
works of art. It is characteristic of Associationists to regard 
an explanation of the first of these, in which department their 
methods are applied with some success, as doing duty for an 
interpretation of the latter also, where, however, the difficulties 
really begin. This arises from their seeing in Art nothing 
but imitation of Nature, without paying any heed to the 
creative element. [Hartley, vol. i. p. 426]. Mill indeed 
scarcely seems to conceive the Beautiful and Sublime as exist- 
ing outside Nature at all, and almost entirely omits Art from 
his examination of them as causes of pleasure. 

The pleasures derived from beautiful objects of Nature arise, 



THE BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE. 193 

in Hartley's view, from the association of sensible pictures of 
rural scenes with mental pictures of the different comforts and 
advantages (such as pleasant tastes, sounds, temperature, sports, 
&e.)j originally and repeatedly experienced in connexion with 
them. Novelty too excites surprise and thus produces a state 
of mind which is highly pleasurable, though sometimes border- 
ing upon the limits of pain. The ideas of uniformity and 
variety in combination — differences in details combined with 
unity of law or plan — which are called up by such. scenes, also 
produce pleasure, inasmuch as they are intimately connected 
with the idea of Adaptation to Ends, excited by similar pro- 
perties in mechanical works and contrivances. [Hartley, vol. i. 
p. 4-19]. Other ideas associated with the contemplation of 
natural beauty are those of health, innocence, and the amorous 
pleasures, and those " which the encomiums of others beget in 

us by means of the contagiousness observable in 

mental dispositions" [Hartley, i. 420], also those suggested 
by the theopathetic affections, where these are strongly 
developed, as well as those which scientific pursuits and in- 
vestigations abundantly call forth. In support of this analysis 
Hartley appeals to each man's individual consciousness. " An 
attentive person/' he says [Observ. on Man, vol. i. p. 421], 
" may, in viewing or contemplating the beauties of Nature, 
lay hold as it were, of the remainders or miniatures of many 
of the particular pleasures here enumerated, while they recur 
in a separate state, and before they coalesce with the general 
indeterminate aggregate, and thus verify the history now 
proposed. " It is an argument moreover in favour of this 
11 history " of the growth of the aesthetical emotions, that the 
kind and degree of feeling with which a person contemplates 
natural scenes varies with the different stages in his life, and 
as the stock of associated ideas gradually accumulates and 
becomes more firmly welded together. It is notorious that 





194 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

old people, as a rule, take greater delight in the contemplation 
of nature than young". Granting these associations to be an 
adequate explanation and basis of the feelings with which we 
behold the Beautiful in nature — a concession which, we 
imagine, few people who have seriously reviewed their own 
state of mind in such circumstances, will be disposed to accord 
— let us see if the emotions consequent upon the contemplation 
of the Sublime can be analyzed by any analogous process. The 
ideas which rugged, mountainous scenery, for instance, excites 
in us must necessarily be in the first place, at any rate, as 
Hartley says, associated with ideas of fear and horror ; so much 
so that certain philosophers, such as Buckle, have even founded 
on them important national characteristics, (such as torpor, 
abjectness, want of mental inquisitiveness, superstition, cruel 
religious rites, &c). 

Whence then the pleasure with which we contemplate the 
grand and awful in Nature ? It is explained (rather unsatis- 
factorily) on the Lucretian " suave mari magno " principle. 
There is a pleasure, as the dramatist says, in hearing with 
drowsy content the winds roaring and rain beating against 
the roof of the comfortable room in which we are ensconced. 1 
But this is a very different feeling from that consequent on 
the view of mountain scenery. Still Hartley and Mill con- 
sider the latter ultimately analyzable into the same primitive 
elements as the former. " The nascent ideas of fear and horror 
magnify and enliven all the other ideas, and by degrees pass 
into pleasures by suggesting the security from pain." (Hart- 
ley, i. 419). One might ask how it is that, if originally 
painful spectacles suggest by contrast the pleasurable ideas of 
our own immunity from pain, pleasurable ideas, such as are 
called up in the first instance by beautiful scenes, do not 

1 VTTO CTTeyj] 

TTVKvrjs CLKoxidat. yj/(Ka$os evbovarj (fipevL Sojih. Fr. 



THE SUBLIME IN NATURE. 195 

equally suggest the ideas of dissatisfaction at our own con-» 
dition as contrasted with their tranquillity and perfection. 

Mill even more emphatically than Hartley, says that the 
sensations which we immediately derive from Colours, Forms, 
and Sounds are in themselves absolutely indifferent, and only 
become interesting by association with ideas. In the case of 
Colours, for instance, the associations are either those which 
arise from the interesting nature of objects or phenomena per- 
manently coloured in certain ways, such as Day, Night, &c, 
or those which arise from some supposed analogy between 
certain colours and certain dispositions of mind, or lastly, those 
which arise from accidental connexions, whether national or 
individual, e.g. the connexion of the colour of purple with 
ideas of dignity and majesty, or the connexion of black in some 
countries, of white in others (as China), with funerals and 
mourning. The Association in every case, and the Association 
alone, is the cause of the Beauty [Mill, ii. 244] . 2 Underived 
beauty of colours is denied. No new colour introduced by 
fashion is (says Alison, as quoted by Mill) pleasing at first. 
This proposition, we think, most persons will dispute with 
J. S. Mill (ii. 247 n.). And still more will they dispute the 
statement that there are no direct physical sensations of plea- 
sure to be derived from music at any rate, if not from the 
sounds of animals. Granting that the scream of the eagle 
or the roar of the lion is only interesting as suggestive of the 
ideas of lonely majesty and independence, who can ascribe the 
pleasure derived from a sonata of Beethoven to its association 
with pleasurableideas, once connected with similar soundsemitted 
by animals or inanimate objects in nature ? Similarly, it may 
very well be doubted whether there is not an original pleasure in 
the contemplation of beautiful Forms; and whether Alison's and 
Mill's derivation of the emotions with which we regard grace- 

8 Gp. ii. 250. 
2 



1 96 II A R TLE Y A ND J A MES MILL . 

ful curves from the fact that, since most of our bodily motions 
are in curves, and most soft surfaces are round, therefore curves 
are suggestive of ease and comfort, and Hartley's explanation 
of the delight taken in beautiful architectural proportions as 
depending upon their association with the ideas of utility and 
adaptation to ends, are at all adequate. Mill as we have said, 
does not treat distinctively of the pleasures derived from works 
of art, but that he would treat these on the same principles as 
those on which he bases the pleasures already noticed, is evi- 
dent from his somewhat astounding statement [ii. 251] 
that the train of ideas associated with the form of the Venus 
de Medicis, and this alone, induces us to call it beautiful and 
justifies us in so calling it. Hartley's exposition of the feelings 
consequent upon the contemplation of works of art consists 
mainly in a reference (1) to the associated ideas of fitness and 
utility (as in architectural and mechanical works), (2) to the 
pleasurable ideas, which are derived from the detection of a 
successful imitation, in Painting, for instance, and Poetry 
[Observ. on Man, vol. i. pp. 427, 431]. In the case of Music, 
however, Hartley allows that certain concords excite an ori- 
ginal, and not a derived, pleasure : but that original pleasure is 
enormously enhanced by those derived from the associations of 
certain sounds with the ideas of " amorous pleasures, public 
rejoicings, riches, high rank " — we may imagine the feelings 
of a musician on reading this — or with " battles, sorrows, 
death, and religious contemplation." In reference to this 
latter set of associated ideas, as in the attempted analysis of 
the Sublime in nature, there is a failure to explain satisfac- 
torily the great crux of the Associationists' theory of aesthetic 
emotion, namely, how it is that we experience a pleasure in 
the teeth of our pain or sadness. A cognate question would 
be raised by the consideration of the feelings attendant on 
tragic representations, where the paradox, that our pleasure 



HARTLEY OX ART. 197 

consists in our pain, is still more apparent : but Hartley omits 
the Drama from his theory altogether. Discords, he says, are 
necessary and proper in music to prevent us being* cloyed with 
the delights of " concords of sweet sounds/'' just as, for pur- 
poses of contrast, a certain degree of obscurity may be both 
justifiable and delightful in poetry. We need nob notice 
further the views of Hartle} r on these subjects, as they are not 
of much real value, and are only of interest as one of the 
earliest attempts to explain aesthetic emotion on strictly asso- 
ciationist principles : though ingenious, they are strained in 
the extreme, in order to bring every phenomenon under his 
favourite law, as, for example, where he speaks of the pleasure 
arising from pictures being derived from, amongst other things, 
" ambition, fashion, the extravagant prices of the works of 
certain masters, from associations of the villas and cabinets of 
the noble, the rich, and the curious, &c./' — a statement which, 
we imagine, would not find more favour with the painter, than 
would the passage quoted above with the musician. 



ig8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE PRINCIPLES OF UTILITARIANISM AND ASSOCIATION AS AP- 
PLIED BY HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL TO SPECIAL DEPARTMENTS 

OF PRACTICAL LIFE, POLITICS — LEGISLATION — EDUCATION 

INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

As in Ethics, so in Politics Mill considers the proper end of 
human effort to be Utility, and further that where really useful 
objects do not appear to be so to minds warped by passion, or 
overclouded by ignorance, such minds should be enticed to 
the performance of the actions calculated to achieve those 
objects by the instrumentality of association, and by connect- 
ing with the actions desirable from such a point of view either 
pleasurable sensations or pleasurable ideas. The same process 
by which we explain how men act as they do should be used 
and manipulated in a manner calculated to induce them to 
act as they ought. The end of any action is always supposed 
Utility ; of right action, considered and reasoned Utility. 
The object of Government, Legislation, and Education is to 
make the imagined interests more and more nearly coincide 
with the real interests, — " to make the values and the associa- 
tions correspond" [Anal., vol. ii. p. 259.] 

Most philosophers agree, says Mill, in his Miscellaneous 
Essays, 1 that the end of government is "public good," to use 
Locke's expression, or, in Bentham's well-known phrase, 

1 Reprinted from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1828. 



PS YCHOL OG Y AXD POLITICS. 199 

" the greatest happiness of the greatest number." These 
propositions, however, though true, tell us little. They are 
tautological, until what is meant by the "public good" is 
explained. To convert them from analytical to ampliative 
propositions, it is necessary to survey the whole field of 
human nature in its various individual manifestations. Politics 
must be based on psychology. History, and the comparison 
of social phenomena as existing in different ages and countries, 
are scouted ; and Mill nowhere appears to recognize the neces- 
sity of taking them into account in determining the principles 
of politics or legislation. He reverses the method of Plato, 
who thought that when the happiness of a whole state is dis- 
covered, that of the individuals composing it is necessarily 
found too ; and that in constructing an ideal of happiness, 
philosophy should begin with seeking the conditions of the 
former. Mill, on the contrary, distinctly says that "to under- 
stand what is included in the happiness of the greatest number, 
we must understand what is included in the happiness of the 
individuals of whom it is composed " [Essay on Government, 
p. 3], His theory of government is, therefore, a direct appli- 
cation to masses of men of his theory of moral phenomena as 
applied in the Analysis to individuals. 

Mill considers that in political inquiries we are bound to 
treat men as ruled by one motive, namely self-interest, just 
as in the narrower sphere of political economy we are forced 
to treat them as ruled by the one motive of love of wealth. 
TVe isolate the wealth-desiring and wealth-acquiring pheno- 
mena of human nature in the latter case, though we know 
that in practice they are intermingled with other phenomena, 
and that wealth is not the only thing which men desire, or 
the love of it which moves them to action. But after the results 
of this isolation are obtained, due allowances can be made, 
and the equation can have the proper values of its terms 



200 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

assigned to it. So in Politics and Legislation we must sup- 
pose, with Bentham, that every man is a knave, and will 
take everything he can from others by deceitful means, to 
obtain his own ends ; or again, with Hobbes, that every man 
is a being of unlimited rapacity — ("homo homini lupus ") — • 
and that he will take from his fellow-citizens, to secure the 
same ends, everything he can by force. The value of the 
method, — there is no question of its legitimacy, — depends of 
course on the degree of facility with which the phenomenon to 
be exclusively examined can be separated from those usually 
existing in company with it. It may reasonably be doubted 
whether this facility exists in the case of the study of Politics 
or Legislation to anything like the same extent as in that of 
Political Economy or the physical sciences. 

Mill places the greatest happiness of society in the insuring 
to every man of the greatest possible quantity of the produce 
of his labour. [Essay on Government, p. 5.] The means of 
attaining this end is the union of a number of men to 
protect one another from the else unrestrained rapacity of 
individuals. 3 But large bodies can only effectively combine 
for these purposes by delegating to representatives the power 
necessary for protecting all. The means therefore may be 
more particularly described as (1) Power, to restrain instinctive 
rapacity and knavery, (2) checks to prevent that Power 
itself developing into rapacity and knavery, — or guards 
against the guardians. Developing with the utmost rigour 
the principle that men in power are wolves or knaves or 
both, Mill attempts to show, that where power is placed in 
the hands of either a Monarch or an Aristocracy, the One or the 
Few thus constituted ruler or rulers will prey upon the rest, 

2 " Government is founded upon this, as a law of human nature, that a 
man, if able, will take from others anything which thej' have and he 
desires." [Essay on Government, p. 8, cp. p. 9.] 



ENDS AND METHODS OF GOVERNMENT. 201 

and defeat the objects for which government is instituted, 
apart from the fact that hereditary governments, whether 
residing in one man or in several, are the worst possible 
security for the ruler or rulers possessing the requisite intel- 
lectual qualities for their office. The monarch or aristocracy 
will desire the acquisition of pleasure at the expense of the 
persons and properties of others. Desiring this as an end, they 
will desire to have the means of attaining it. This means is 
power — the ability, namely, to enforce actions on the part ot 
others in conformity with their own will. This again is obtained 
by the two instruments of terrorism and favouritism. The 
former operates upon men's fears, and produces that dumb 
hopeless and nerveless kind of obedience, which existed, for 
instance, in France for the three or four reigns preceding the 
Revolution. The latter produces its effect by awarding pleasures 
to pliancy and obsequiousness. Thus the monarch or aristo- 
cracy is irresistibly led on, and the more irresistibly the longer 
he or it governs, (till, at last, as Plato says of the tyrant, it 
becomes with them a self-preservative instinct), " not only to 
indulge in that degree of plunder which leaves the members 
(excepting always the recipients and instruments of the 
plunder) the bare means of subsistence, but also to exercise 
that degree of cruelty which is necessary to keep in existence 
the most intense terror."" \_Essay on Gov eminent, p. 12.] They 
are impelled to seek the means of obtaining an unlimited degree 
of power over an unlimited number of persons. So that the 
common objection that the citizens of a state will be less 
plundered by One in a Monarchy, than by the Few in an Aristo- 
cracv, and by the Few in an Aristocracy, than by the Many in 
a Democracy, falls to the ground. The notion, accepted by 
some modern philosophers such as Guizot, of a Monarch as a 
Mediator between the conflicting forces of the state, removed 
by his exalted position from the possibility of interest or 



202 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL.) 

prejudice in any one direction, evidently did not find favour 
with Mill. With him the Monarch must necessarily he the 
Tyrant, according to the principles of human nature, though 
he admits that some historical facts (such as the Monarchy of 
Denmark) are against him. [Essay on Government, p. 9.] 
The conclusion is then, that " whenever the powers of Govern- 
ment are placed in any hands other than those of the commu- 
nity, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those 
principles of human nature which imply that government is at 
all necessary, imply that these persons will make use of them 
to defeat the very end for which Government exists." [Essay 
on Government, p. 8.] And the difficulty is not got over, in 
Mill's opinion, hy a constitutional system of Government hy 
different Orders. [Essay on Government, pp. 14, 15.] The 
Community must desire its own interest. And this can only 
be secured by its acting as one body, not by its having two 
peoples, the rich and the poor, as Plato says, encamped over 
against one another in one city, or within the limits of one 
territory. But all public business would be out of the ques- 
tion, if the community attempted to transact it en masse. A 
Democracy, pure and simple, is the most desirable form of 
government, where feasible, as in the old Greek cities ; but 
according to the modern territorial conception of a state, it 
must be dismissed as outside the range of practical politics. 
Nothing, therefore, remains which is at once, just, proper, and 
feasible, but the Representative system. [Essay on Government, 
p. 1 6.] The power here resides in certain individuals appointed 
by the Representatives, and the checking power resides in the 
Representatives themselves, whose interest is identical with 
that of the Community. We have therefore the two requisites 
of good government. [Essay on Government, pp. 17 — 27.] 

It may be objected however that the people are incapable 
of estimating their true interests; that though they cannot 



EDUCATION. 203 



be mistaken as to what they desire, they may he, and often 
are, mistaken as to the real value of what they desire. 3 But 
the question is, Mill urges, not whether the will of the com- 
munity is an ideal or perfect will, but whether it is better that 
the will of the community, or the will of an individual, party, 
or class in it, should direct and control the affairs of all the 
citizens. For such mistakes, in any case, there is an un- 
failing 1 remedy, knowledge; and knowledge is happily capable 
of being increased by Education, an instrument which we 
now proceed to consider. 4 

It is natural that two such believers in the almost un- 
limited potency of Association in forming pleasures, pains, 
duties, motives, and affections, as were Hartley and James 
Mill, should occupy themselves considerably with the most 
obvious means of establishing and riveting associative bonds. 
Accordingly, even in the exposition of their general 
theory of the human mind, we are continually coming across 
references to the influence and importance of Education, 
accompanied (especially in Mill's case) with strong expressions 
of discontent at the modes of instruction prevailing in their 
respective times, and hints for the establishment of a better 
system. 

" It is of the utmost consequence to morality and religion/' 

3 This objection besides being handled on pp. 28 — 32 of the Essay on 
Government is made the subject of copious extracts and remarks, under 
the title " People Unfit," and among the " Idola Politica " enumerated in 
Mill's MS. commonplace books (in four volumes) which were presented 
to the London Library by J. S. Mill, and are now in its possession. 
Objections to Aristocratical and Monarchical Government are treated of in 
these same books under the titles Nobility, Liberty, Innovation, Patronage, 
Protests of Despotism, Reform, Character of a Perfect Reformer, People's 
Power, Aristocracy, &c, &c. The quotations exhibit a prolonged and 
methodical study. 

4 In Legislation and Jurisprudence [Essay Xo. II.'] Mill merely follows 
Bentham. 



204 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

says Hartley [vol. i. p. 81], "that the affections and 
passions should be analyzed into their simple compounding 
parts, by reversing the steps of the associations which concur 
to form them. For thus we may learn how to cherish and 
improve good ones, check and root out such as are mis- 
chievous and immoral, and how to suit our manner of life in 
some tolerable measure, to our intellectual and religious wants. 
And as this holds, in respect of persons of all ages, so it is 
particularly true, and worthy of consideration, in respect' of 

children and youth The world is indeed sufficiently 

stocked with general precepts for this purpose, grounded on 
experience ; and whosoever will follow these faithfully, may 
expect good general success. However, the doctrine of 
association, when traced up to the first rudiments of under- 
standing and affection, unfolds such a scene as cannot fail 
both to instruct and alarm all such as have any degree of 
interested concern for themselves, or of a benevolent one for 
others." Education, then, in Hartley's opinion should be 
the putting together again of the pieces severed by the theory 
of association. The reconstructive process should be the 
exact reversal of the analytical. Mill follows Hartley in 
this view, though by no means in his sanguine estimation of 
the value of the ordinary precepts of the times, grounded on 
experience. 5 He thought the current systems wholly and 
radically wrong, and for 

5 In another passage, however, Hartley speaks of the "carelessness and 
infatuation of parents and magistrates with respect to the education of 
youth," as one of the causes which seemed to him to " threaten ruin and 
dissolution to the present states of Christendom " [ii. 441]. And again, 
in speaking of the duties of parents, he "cannot hut conclude the general 
education of youth to be grossly erroneous and perverted " [ii. 237]. He 
supposes [ii. 254] the proper education of a prince to be entirely out of 
the question, and expresses a longing for, rather than an expectation of, 
the appearance of some philosopher-king, after Plato's heart. 



ITS VALUE AND FUNCTION. 205 

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past 
That youth and observation copied 

in the human mind in his day, he had but little respect. 
We have seen how Hartley regards the influence and value 
of Art almost entirely in its moral and educational aspects, 
and what didactic significance he attaches to allegories, myths, 
and analogies generally. He, like Mill after him, notices 
more than once the educational importance of language in 
creating associations, and more especially the use to which 
such words as Bentham would call eulogistic and dyslogistic, 
may be put ; and proposes, as we have seen, with a view to 
the suggestion of the proper trains of thought, philosophical 
languages and dictionaries. [Vol. i. pp 319, 320J . The 
mechanical view of human nature, upheld by him, as the 
outcome of associationism, he thinks particularly calculated to 
abolish the notion of capricious volition, and to inculcate that 
of law and method in morality, and so to give better 
guarantees for the success of educational labours [vol. i. p. 
510]. In the Analysis Mill deplores again and again the 
imperfect systems of education in vogue, and hints at what 
he considers the right means of disposing men to work for 
the good of their fellow- creatures, and allow the larger 
associations to guide and control the narrower. 6 But his 
more elaborate adumbration of the essential features of proper 
and philosophical education is contained in the seventh of 
the Essays. 

In Education, as in Politics, Mill considered man from one 
side only, and that the side brought most prominently forward 
in his psychological inquiries. " In psychology," wrote 

« Analysis, vol. ii. pp. 215, 221. 225, 227, 250, 270. 272, 276, 278, 270, 
289, 203, 300, 378, 403. See his essays in the Edinburgh Review and 
the Philanthropist on the rival schemes for the education of the poor 
propounded by Bell and Lancaster. 



206 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

J. S. Mill, "his" (James Mill's) "fundamental doctrine was 
the formation of all human character by circumstances, through 
the universal principle of Association, and the consequent un- 
limited possibility of improving the moral and intellectual 
condition of mankind by education/' On such subjects Mill 
was an enthusiast. He believed that there was no limit to the 
number and variety of individuals whicli it could reach, to 
the age at which it was possible to begin, (in this follow- 
ing Rousseau,) to the things which it could teach, or to the 
qualities which it could inspire. All men were in his view 
as in that of Helvetius and Sir W. Jones, born with much the 
same capacity of improvement. There were no differences in 
the energy and ability brought to bear by various individuals 
on the affairs of life, which could not be accounted for by 
differences in education. In describing its possibilities [Essays, 
No. VII. pp. 18 — 20] Mill almost reaches the sublime. 

The object of education is to render first the human mind, 
and next the human body, productive of the highest degree of 
happiness to their possessor and to the rest of mankind. To 
the body Mill did not pay very much attention. 7 In regard 
to the mind, everything which affects in any way whatsoever 
those of its qualities and conditions, on which happiness 
depends, must be contemplated as a possible means of its 
education. The reason why the theory of education is generally 
so imperfect is that this first principle is neglected, and certain 
classes of things affecting the mind are arbitrarily singled out 
from the rest, for the purpose of building on them an educa- 
tional system. 

As prerequisites, therefore, to any theory of education, it is 
necessaiy (1) to consider how things and circumstances operate 

7 Either as part of his theory, or part of his practice, — (witness the 
education of his son, so lamentably deficient in physical training, vid. 
Autobiography, p. 36). 



ITS PREREQUISITES. 207 

upon minds, (2) the nature of the thing's and circumstances so 
operating" on the mind as to render it productive of happiness, 
(3) the nature of the mental qualities productive of happiness. 
The first problem is answered by the Association psychology, 
the third by the analysis of the active phenomena of the mind. 
It remains to consider the circumstances and methods operating 
upon the mind so as to form the necessary qualities. Now 
the function of the mind being- the having or experiencing 
certain sequences or trains of ideas, the object of education is 
to ensure the constant presence of some trains in preference to 
others. The means which most effectually secure this end are 
Custom, and the Ideas of Pleasure and Pain. The right 
sequences of ideas must be rendered as indissoluble as possible 
by the former, and as desirable, or as repulsive as possible, by 
their association with the latter. We have " first to ascertain 
what are the ends, the really ultimate objects of human desire ; 
next what are the most beneficent means of attaining these 
objects ; and lastly to accustom the mind to fill up the inter- 
mediate space between" [any] " present sensation" [taken as a 
starting-point] "and the ultimate object with nothing but 
ideas of the beneficent means." [Essays, No. VII. p. 147]. 

The qualities of the mind calculated to produce happiness 
are partly intellectual, partly moral. It was characteristic of 
Mill's philosophy, indeed of the Utilitarian system generally, 
to look to actions and results, rather than to sentiments 
motives and dispositions, in estimating moral worth : and we 
are not surprised, therefore, to find Mill paying considerable 
attention to the intellectual qualities (knowledge to supply 
the material, and sagacity or the power to use that material, — 
copiousness and energy, — fullness with readiness). Blind fanati- 
cism working- infinite evil with the best intentions was as 
repulsive and abominable to Mill as " the lie in the soul" was 
to Plato. The ethical qualities are chiefly, as we have seen 



2o8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

above. Temperance, Fortitude (primarily self- regarding) and 
Justice and Benevolence, (primarily altruistic). The circum- 
stances operating on the mind to produce and stimulate these 
qualities, moral and intellectual, are both of the physical, and 
of the moral and mental kind. A consideration of the former 
gives us a view of Physical Education, of the latter a view of 
Domestic, Technical, Social, and Political Education. In the 
matter of Physical Education, Mill follows Cabanis, the French 
physician and philosophe, whose name is chiefly known to 
Englishmen as associated in a sarcasm of Carlyle with the 
doctrines of "the secretion of thought," and " the production 
of poetry from the smaller intestines," the elder Darwin's 
Zoonomia, and Dr. Crichton's researches, besides hints thrown 
out by Hartley in his semi-medical capacity. [Essays, No. VII. 
pp. 22—30.] 

Domestic Education in Mill's view cannot be commenced 
too soon. It should be contemporaneous with sensation itself. 
The mistake of most people is, to begin education too late. 
What Mill derived from the theory of Rousseau, he carried 
into practice in the training of his own son, whether with 
altogether satisfactory results any one who reads the latter's 
Autobiography may be allowed to doubt. 3 

In order that the qualities of intelligence may be early 
developed in children, the sequences of their ideas should be 
made as far as possible to correspond to the sequences of pheno- 
mena in nature. Pain and pleasure again should be made 
to follow on conduct with the precision of a natural law. 
Children should not be led to regard their parents as acting 
capriciously, or as propitiated by entreaties and flatteries. 
They should be taught to recognize, that each act of theirs 

8 On the want of physical education in J. S. Mill's case, see Autob. p. 
30 (quoted above) ; on the deadening of the imaginative element and the 
emotions, see the Autob. passim. 



MORAL TRAIXIXG BY ASSOCIATION. 209 

carries its consequences with it, and thus the appropriate 
associations would he generated, and a foundation laid for Tem- 
perance as well as Intelligence. \Essay, No. VII. p. 33.] 

In inculcating Benevolence, the task of the parent or educator 
is (at first at any rate), somewhat easier. The child will of 
his own accord notice that when those around him are cheerful 
and pleased, they will be more disposed to let their feelings 
overflow in little acts of kindness to himself, and that when 
they are plunged in gloom and sorrow, he will be forgotten or 
made much less of than usually. An association will conse- 
quently be formed between the pleasures and pains of those 
about him and his own pleasures and neglect (if not pains) 
respectively. He will thus have an interest in seeing other 
persons happy, and will on occasions be prompted to endeavour 
himself to secure their happiness. Next he will perceive (of 
himself, again, in most cases, quite as much as under the 
guidance of others) a new fact, namely, that when he is the 
cause of pleasure to other people, not only do they often in 
their gratified condition, exert themselves to perform kindly 
offices to those round about them (himself among the number), 
but they are peculiarly well disposed to him in particular. He 
is, therefore, now doubly stimulated to benevolence from the two 
sets of pleasurable ideas associated, first, with the happiness of 
others from whatever source derived ; next, and specifically, 
with that happiness as caused or promoted by himself. 

Meanwhile the child is every day absorbing by imitation 
the basis of future character. And here it is that the office of 
education is brought into play,in regard to the qualityof benevo- 
lence. If by the observation and interpretation of the words and 
other signs, spoken or made use of by those about him, the child 
perceives that the trains of ideas in their minds connected with 
the ideas of the pleasures and pains of persons other than them- 
selves, and especially when caused by themselves, appear to be 

P 



2 1 o II A R TL EY A ND J A MES MILL. 

pleasurable and painful respectively; then the associations 
formed in that child's mind in the first instance will be riveted 
still closer by repetition and imitation. Immediately therefore 
on the occurrence to a child of the pleasurable ideas of power 
over other men, dignity, &c, it is the duty of the parent, by his 
words and actions, to suggest to him the ideas of the proper 
means to that end, that is, of acts of benevolence ; and, again, 
whenever the idea of performing an act of benevolence enters the 
mind of the child, whatever may in fact be the antecedent of that 
idea, to couple with it at once and as often as possible pleasurable 
and encouraging ideas of the command over other men's wills, 
as the necessary effect and reward of those acts. But this is 
onlv half the work. Another great object should be to elimi- 
nate, suppress, and discourage the formation and repetition of 
those sequences of associated ideas which tend to impress on the 
child the belief that he can obtain the good offices of others as 
much by threatening them with pain as by doing acts which 
will procure them pleasure, ideas which thus lay the foundation 
for tyranny. Mill takes a rather good example of this, and 
one which shows how early he would have the educational 
processes inaugurated : — he says that nearly every child is 
taught to associate the idea of obtaining' its desires with the 
ideas of crying and shrieking ; and in this way, says Mill, 
pathetically, the cries and wailings of a child are very often an 
instrument of absolute tyranny. This and similar concessions 
on the part of parents (often from a selfish desire to remove 
their own unpleasant sensations by the speediest measures) 
begin what is known as the process of spoiling a child. In 
the case of Pain, as in that of Pleasure, Imitation is a potent 
factor in producing habitual dispositions. When children see 
pain inflicted everywhere about them, on themselves among 
others, as the means of securing power, they gradually associate 
the ideas of dignity with those of the infliction of pain on 



TRAINING OF THE IXTELLIGENCE. 211 

others ; hence the frequently observed fact that the slavery of 
childhood becomes the tyranny of mature age, and conversely 
that only those who have served law well can administer it well: 
and that the ideal of a citizen, and we may say of a man, is 
6 Kara fiepos cipywv teal cip^o/xeros [Essays, No. VII. pp. 
31—37]. 

Technical Education (to which, much to Mill's disgust, the 
term Education is often exclusively confined), has to do mainly 
with the intelligence, or (as above stated) the knowledge of 
the order of those natural events and phenomena on which 
happiness depends, together with that sagacity which finds the 
best means to the accomplishment of desired ends. Mill's 
observations are here restricted to the inculcation of the ne- 
cessity and duty of educating the labouring classes, the poor 
as well as the rich. To deny them technical education — educa- 
tion in the liberal arts — is to deny them intelligence (or at 
all events its proper development) : to deny them intelligence 
is to deny them happiness. 9 He is vehemently opposed to the 
idea that happiness is disproportionate to knowledge : it may 
be so in individuals, where external circumstances operate as 
well as cultivation of the mind ; it cannot be so in the case of 
nations. When knowledge is diffused, it will never happen 
that the nation will miss the best objects of knowledge, though 
an individual may. He strongly recommends some such 
discipline as Bentham's Chrestomathia, or instruction in useful 
objects of knowledge ; of the proposed Chrestomathic Hay- 
school, and other institutions connected with it, he rather 
sanguinely affirms that "of the practicability of the scheme 
no competent judge ever doubted/'' though he adds that " the 
difficulty of collecting funds" prevented its demonstration. 
For the current modes of instruction in Universities he had 

9 Cp. Lis essay in the Edinburgh Review on the moral systems of Bell 
and Lancaster for the education of the Poor. 

P i 



212 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

the greatest contempt/ as lie had for all forms and institutions 
which he conceived to be hostile to the distinctive feature of 
all true education, progression, and to be allied to clericalism 
and routine. He does not, however, go into details on this, or 
on the other two branches of Education, social and political. 
His sentiments, moreover, on the two last-named, may be 
collected from his Analysis and the Essay on Government, 

The great object of Domestic Education is to enable a man to 
defy the evil effects of social education, as society is now con- 
stituted. 2 We may not be able at once to alter the influences 
of society from bad to good, but we can equip our children 
against them by reforming our households. [Essays, No. VII. 
pp. 43 — 46]. The danger of a riotous reaction in some cases, 
and of utter gloom and despondency in others (such as affected 
J. S. Mill at one period of his life), on the child's attaining 
mature years, and finding that the vast world outside his 
hearth and home has not been instructed as he himself has, 
and that the mode and temper of thought prevalent in society 
is totally strange and unfamiliar to him, — these were problems 
which never occurred to Mill. Not only did Mill believe in 
the unlimited teachability of individuals to procure and secure 
their common interests, but he also believed in the possibility of 
a similar education for nations. The scheme of an international 
tribunal for the arrangement of differences between commu- 
nities, and the gradual elimination of war from off the face of 
the earth, which has given food alike for the aspirations of 



1 In one of his commonplace books he has several pages of very bitter 
declamations of his own, and extracts from the works of others (Bacon, 
Gibbon, &c) against university training. 

2 We are reminded of Plato's philosophical education, which however 
was to begin much later in life, with a view to equip the citizen-philo- 
sophers against the seductions and sophistry of the greatest of all sophists 
— society. 



MILL ON INTERNA TIONAL ETHICS. 2 1 3 

poets,. and the investigations of philosophers, 3 was made by 
Mill the subjeet of elaborate practical suggestions, contained 
in his Essay on the Law of Nations. The tribunal was to 
work in conformity with the provisions of an international Code, 
and Mill (with all the confidence of a theorist) expresses his 
belief that the application of the principle which he suggests 
implies no peculiar difficulty, if the proper moral sentiments 
be implanted in nations by means of a study of the Code. 
Each nation will be as anxious to avoid the ill-will and con- 
tempt of other nations, as every individual is to avoid similar 
dispositions towards himself on the part of his fellow-men. 
[Essays, No. YI. pp. 27 — 73.] It is curious, however, that 
whereas, in treating of Politics, Mill conceives of a man or 
body of men as desirous only of securing as much pleasure as 
they can at the expense of others, in dealing with interna- 
tional relations, he apparently ignores the exclusive operation 
of such a desire, though the restraints on its accomplish- 
ment are obviously much less strong in the case of nations 
than in that of individuals, and the hypothesis, therefore, 
which should isolate such a phenomenon would be much nearer 
the facts, and therefore more valuable, in the former than 
in the latter. If a man is a wolf to other men in a commu- 
nity, unless effectual restraints, — restraints far stronger than 
moral, — are placed upon his actions, will not a community 
itself become a pack of wolves in reference to other commu- 
nities, where no such restraints can possibly be imposed ? 
Association can do much in the way of educating; but Mill 
vastly underrates the difficulty of educating a nation out 
of its warlike propensities by the use of such an instrument. 

3 Kant sketched out a plan of such a tribunal in an essay translated by 
De Quincey. The Abbe St. Pierre was anotber speculator in this direction. 
Set- Woolsey's International Latv, for an account of some of these schemes. 
Sbelley of the poets is the most anti-warlike. See the beautiful chorus 
closing the Hellas. 



214 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



*art e$. 



THE VALUE AND INFLUENCE OF THEIR OPINIONS. 

We have hitherto abstained from detailed criticism, in accord- 
ance with the aim of this Series, and have only offered 
comments here and there, where the tenets of either of our 
two philosophers appeared manifestly insufficient to explain 
what they proposed to explain, or where they were inconsistent 
with themselves, or where, on any other ground, brief criti- 
cism seemed not only not at variance with, but even necessary 
to, the interests of exposition. We are now at liberty (1) to 
attempt to show (very briefly) to what extent James Mill by 
superior lucidity of arrangement, accuracy of reasoning, or 
analytical penetration, made advances on Hartley, and how 
far on the other hand he was indebted for his impulse and 
starting-point to his predecessor's copious, but often ill- 
digested, materials ; (2) to estimate the general character of 
the writings of the two philosophers, the distinctive mark 
which they left on their successors in various branches of 
philosophy, and their place in the history of Associationism 
and Utilitarianism. 

I. Hartley and Mill were alike ardent and single-minded 
lovers of truth. And they agreed in the main on the mean- 



HARTLEY'S STYLE AND METHOD. 215 

ing of the truth which they wished to convey. But the 
speculative and literary methods employed by them in the 
exposition of their (on the whole) common views differed con- 
siderably ; as also did the matter itself in some minor 
details. 

The styles of the two philosophers were as dissimilar as 
possible. Hartley was gifted with the " copia fandi," ' while 
Mill's style and mode of reasoning' were severely simple. The 
two, indeed, were alike in their formal and scholastic methods, 
and in their love of packing their doctrines into a syllogism or 
pocket formula. But Hartley was not prevented by these 
precise and orderly habits from giving free vent to those 
sentiments, which Mill and his school would have scorned as 
sentimentalities, nor from many a gay excursus into a variety 
of intellectual domains, from which the austerer bent of the 
latter restrained him. Hartley's rambling and gossiping style, 
his queer mathematical mysticism (which Mr. Leslie Stephen 
notices "), his medical fancies and digressions, his theories of 
biblical interpretation, his minute observations of the customs 
of young children, and the inferior animals, his interest in 
philosophical languages and dictionaries, his liking for theology 
and discussion of the theopathetic faculties, — all these were 
foreign to the mental habits and constitution of James Mill. 
The preciseness of method apparently reflected in Hartley's 
Propositions, Corollaries, and Scholia did not extend beneath 
the surface, whereas that observable in Mill's works was 
radical, and answered to a certain analytical twist in his mind. 
Indeed the mathematical forms of the former, when applied 

1 Hartley's philosophical garrulity is not so striking as that of Tucker, 
whom he resembles in some respects ; but his book is not unlike a less well- 
stocked Keligio Medici than that of Sir Thomas Browne : indeed Philo- 
sophia ^Medici would have been an admirable title for the Observations 
on Mian. 

9 Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 68. 



216 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

to the abstrusest and most ethereal subjects, serve rather, by 
quaintness of contrast, to intensify our recognition of his love 
of mysticism than to suggest his predilection for formalism. 
The form wns conventional, and derived from without, — from 
Newton's Principia and other mathematical and scientific 
works : whereas the matter to which he applied the form was 
really congenial to his own tastes. This curious compression 
of elastic material within rigid formulae is continually to be 
met with throughout his work. His algebraical symbols and 
equations are endless. He goes out of his way [Observ. on 
Man, vol. ii. p. 282] to compare the gradual substitution of a 
less and purer self-interest, in moral growth, for a larger and 
grosser, to "some mathematical methods of obtaining quantities 
to any required degree of exactness.'" The degree of happiness 
which may be derived by one man from his benevolent actions 
towards another is explained like a problem in Euclid [ii. 286]. 
All the propositions relating to vibrations and vibratiuncules are 
expressed algebraically ; and even, in enouncing the proposi- 
tion that in all men the love of God should be greater than 
the fear of him, and the fear of him greater than the love of 
the world, he is not content until he has evolved an equation 

W : F : : F : L, therefore W = -jr, where L, F, and W re- 

present the three above sentiments respectively. Language, 
he often says, is merely a less perfect algebra, and perhaps 
this is why he flies to algebra so often where language fails 
him. The wealth of his illustrative matter is very great. 
Allusions to Newton, whose Principia first set him on to the 
Vibration Theory, and introductions of physical theories and 
analogies are numerous. He never forgets that he is a phy- 
sician, nor allows his readers to forget it. He culls several 
examples from the field of medicine, — comparing, for instance, 
a complex idea irresoluble into the separate elements of which 



HIS DISCURSIVENESS. 217 

it is composed to Venice treacle [vol. i. p. 322], while the 
phenomena of disease and morbid affections are carefully con- 
sidered by him in relation to his philosophical principles, 
whenever an opportunity offers, and he devotes a special section 
[vol. i. pp. 390 — 403] to the imperfections of reason resulting" 
from derangements or decline of bodily powers, such as madness, 
idiocy, dotage, drunkenness, delirium. To the phenomena of 
sleep and dreaming, and also to the condition of the deaf and 
dumb, he pays great attention [vol. i. p. 287] ; and in the 
practical part of his work devotes some pages to an elaboration 
of the rules of good disetetics [ii. 218 — 228]. His medical 
instincts similarly led him to couple muscular motion with 
sensation and ideation, and to give an account of association 
which should embrace each branch of its triple influence on 
the three main elements of human nature. Nothing is too 
apparently small to escape his attention. u De minimis curat 
philosophia " is his motto : and he is quite guiltless of that 
misconception of the function of philosophy which the late 
Mr. Bagehot imputed to most of its professors, preventing 
them from condescending to small things, or seeing that 
speculation should, like some Nasmyth's hammer, be able to 
put the head on to a pin as easily as beat out a ton of weight. 
He devotes a special section to the intellectual faculties of 
brutes [i. 404 — 415, cp. ii. 226 sqq.]. By his observations of 
the reciprocal influence of language and thought upon one 
another, he is (as we have already seen) led to suggest hints 
for the construction of a philosophical language for all nations, 
founded on combinations of a certain number of primitive 
words, carefully selected with a view to their facility of calling 
up the appropriate ideas [i. 315 — 318], — a scheme which was 
first worked out in some kind of outline by one George Dal- 
garno (1627—1687) in his Ars Signorum, — Vulgo Character 
Universalis et Lingua P/iilosopkica, and elaborated by Bishop 



2i8 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

Wilkins, 3 with his six genera and 3000 radicals, on a principle 
noticed with much approval by Professor Max Miiller. Such 
a philosophical language, says Hartley, " would as much exceed 
any of the present languages as a paradisiacal state does the 
mixture of happiness and misery which has been our portion 
ever since the fall." In connexion with this part of his subject, 
he speaks with approval of Byrom's system of shorthand, then 
first coming into use, as being a method of marking ideas by 
the most practicable, economical, and at the same time philoso- 
phical symbols as yet discovered. In another part of his work, 
his busy brain is occupied with the idea of a philosophical 
dictionary, which should be, as he says, " a real as well as a 
nominal one/' that is, should combine the merits of an ency- 
clopaedia and a lexicon [vol. i. p. 285]. 

From music Hartley derives several of his illustrations and 
analogies [i. 289, 321, &c] ; and for Pope and some other of 
the English poets of a practical and moralizing turn (as was 
stated in his Life) he had a sincere admiration : but, some- 
what to our surprise, we find his attitude towards the imagina- 
tive arts in their moral and educational aspects to have been 
decidedly hostile. The poets in general he rarely speaks of in 
his philosophical writings except as " lewd," and unfit to be 
taught to, or read by, the young. In his classification of the 
sciences, he contemptuously relegates poetry, together with 
Grammar and the cognate sciences, to the sphere of Philology, 
and he agrees (to the best of our recollection) with Mill in not 
having a single quotation from any poet in his philosophical 
" magnum opus." But of all his pursuits theological seem 
to have been the favourite ; such questions as the possible 

3 In his Essay towards a Seal Character and Philosophical Lan- 
guage (16G8). The second part of the work was strictly philosophical, 
the remaining three were on the artificial language proposed. Leibnitz 
speculated in the same direction. 



THE VARIETY OF HIS TASTES. 219 

restitution of the Jews to Palestine he discussed with the 
greatest avidity ; and did not shrink from such unortho- 
dox eonelusions on the expectations of man as that all indi- 
viduals will ultimately enjoy the same degree of happiness in 
the future state [i. 486 — 492, and vol. ii. passim], and the like 
expressions of what Mr. Leslie Stephen 4 calls his "optimism 
run mad," whi-h remind us of similar speculations on the 
part of Abraham Tucker. 

From the above instances the varied nature of Hartley's in- 
vestigations will lie apparent. His personal character and posi- 
tion shine through his writings. In them we see the patient 
physician professionally accustomed to "read each wound and 
weakness clear, And say, 'thou ailest here and here/" but 
having leisure for other studies in his moments of repose, and 
willingly seeking relief therein ; — a man of enthusiasm, but 
of a measured enthusiasm; — loving to speculate on the un- 
known future, but sober and restrained in his speculations, 
which generally rested on some solid basis of fact ; — not eager 
to publish his ideas when red-hot, but preferring to accumulate, 
to wait, to prove and improve. His position as oscillating 
between two poles, 5 — between the firm ground of earth and 
Ariosto's moon-region of abortive fancies, — between the career 
of the theologian for which he was destined in the first instance 
and the career of the experimental physician to which he even- 
tually devoted himself, — is curiously reflected in the form of the 
first sketch of his system, the Latin treatise above referred to 
in the Life, which commences modestly in the character of an 
appendix to a medical tract de Lit/tout rijjfico, or on reme- 
dies and solvents for the disease of the stone, and ends with a 

4 Hist of Eng. Thought, $c, vol. ii. pp. Co. 66, 120. 

5 The curious contrasts in Hartley's work are pointed out bj Mr. 
Leslie Stephen [English Thought, Sfc. ii. 64) with his accustomed clearness 

and vivacity. 



220 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

rhapsodical eulogium of the Christian religion/ reminding 
us strongly of Bishop Berkeley's Shis, which, as Coleridge 
tells us, 7 was " announced as an Essay on Tar- water, and began 
with Tar and ended with the Trinity, the { omne scibile * form- 
ing the interspace." In the closing sentences of this little 
pamphlet he augurs well for logical, ethical, and religious 
studies from the combined efforts of medicine and philosophy, 
based on physical science [" sociata opera Medicorum et Philo- 
sophorum, Lockii et Newtoni vestigiis insistentium "] : while, 
in his preface to theObservations, he speaks of the double interest 
attaching to Association, — first that of tracing it to its physical 
cause, next that of following out its consequences in morality 
or religion. He apologizes too for the " many disquisitions 
foreign to the doctrine of association, which intermixed them- 
selves " in the course of his work ; disclaims the office of a 
system-maker ; and says that he did not look for facts to suit his 
system, but adapted his system to suit the new facts which 
were every day unfolding themselves to his view, as his labours 
proceeded. In consequence of this, he fears that the book may 
seem sketchy and incoherent, some of his doctrines (that of 
necessity or mental mechanism, in particular) having forced 
themselves upon him in the course of his undertaking in spite 
of vehement opposition on the part of his own inclinations and 
prejudices, and having been dragged, so to speak, with violence 
into the main body and drift of the treatise. The fact that the 
different parts of the work were written at different times, and 
at different stages of his intellectual growth may, he hopes, 
help to account for redundancies and repetitions, and other 
blemishes of manner. In upholding the uses of his system he 

6 Cp. p. 1 with p. 42 of the tractate "De Sensu, Motu, et Idearum 
Generatione " (in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical Tracts of the Eighteenth 
Century). 

7 Biogr. Lit. p. 143. 



MILLS SEVERITY OF STYLE. 221 



present? a two-faced aspect ; on the one hand urging its value 
in medicine, especially pathology and therapeutics, on the othei 
hand showing- how it leads to a true conception of logic and 
mental science, how it destroys logomachies, interprets ethical 
phenomena successfully, and through them leads the inquirer 
to religious investigations and truths [De Se/is/t, &c, pp. 
38—40]. 

Hartley's snggestiveness, combined with thorough intellec- 
tual candour, (even though that candour induces him occasion- 
ally to lay bare to his readers sinuous processes of reasoning, 
and intricate methods of arriving at results, which it would 
have been better to have concealed), has gained him ten 
disciples, where James Mill's superior philosophy, encumbered 
as it is by an ungainly style, has attracted one ; and has even 
charmed philosophers the most opposed to him in the current 
and tendency of their beliefs. 8 Mill's manner of philosophizing 
was very different. His severe simplicity and contempt for 
philosophical gossip and flowers of rhetoric was one of the 
distinguishing marks of his school, and as such will be noticed 
presently. He would turn neither to the right hand nor to 
the left out of the high road leading direct to the object in 
view. His own account 9 of the salient features in a coherent, 
as opposed to a rambling, discourse seems in its most literal 
sense to have been always present to him. His personal 
character and intellectual habits were firmer and more earnest — 
but, it must be added, narrower — than those of Hartley. 

The differences in point of matter between the two philo- 
sophers were not great. Such as they were, they arose partly 
from the peculiarities of the men, partly from the character: 



s Such as Coleridge, who called his eldest son after the name of the 
philosopher, as a mark of the interest and admiration with which he was 
then studying him. See Biogr. Lit. p. 86. 

9 See Mill's chapter on the Will (end of vol. ii. of Analysis). 



22. 



HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



of the times in which they severally lived. Mill was more bent 
on the practical application of his views than Hartley, and 
wrote more with the fervour of a man who expected his creeds 
to be turned into deeds, and who attached an educational or 
social value to every opinion which he expressed. Mill com- 
posed with the rigour and simplicity of a schoolmaster of the 
world ; Hartley with the ingenuous babbling of a pupil of the 
world. Consequently the former at once discarded vibrations; 
for, provided that people can be brought to perceive the uses of 
association in education, it does not matter what physical 
theory is put behind it as the cause of the cause. Nor on the 
other hand will he follow his theory out into the nebulous region 
of theopathy and theology ; for if men can be induced to con- 
strict a morality on better associations, they will not be long 
in constructing a better religion. Like Hartley, Mill deplores 
the degenoVre state of existing methods and principles, and, 
like him, groans at the 

"Jarring and inexplicable frame 
Of this wrong world :" 

but whereas Hartley contents himself with merely prophesy- 
ing a " culbute generale " of most of the nations of Christen- 
dom, Mill sets to work vehemently at schemes of reformation 
in law, politics, and education. Hartley's literary atmosphere 
was science and divinity, Mill's was the " philosophical radi- 
calism " of the Benthamite reformers. If to the former, as 
Professor Clifford said, must be given the credit of having 
first seriously handled the problem of the chemistry of the 
human mind, to the latter must be accorded that of having 
first thoroughly examined its mechanical forces and the possi- 
bility of utilizing them for social and educational purposes. 
But there are few specific theories broached by Hartley which 
Mill has very much improved, though he has put several of 



HIS SIMPLICITY OF METHOD. 223 

his predecessor's tenets into a more philosophical shape, besides 
adding some fresh elements of his own to the general system. 
His chief merit — as J. S. Mill observes [Preface to the 
Analysis, pp. xvii, xviii] — was a vigorous exercise of the 
qualities (somewhat lacking' in Hartley) " which facilitate the 
access of recondite thoughts to minds to which they are new:" 
when, however, the critic goes on to say that the Analysis 
" attains an elevation far beyond Hartley's M [work] " in the 
thoughts themselves," as well as in their arrangement and 
elucidation, we are disposed to think the praise excessive. 
The doctrine of Inseparable Association was certainly elabo- 
rated by Mill, but the principle had been clearly enunciated 
by Hartley, and both the principle and the name were men- 
tioned, though not illustrated in any very great detail, by 
Gay, or whoever may have been the author of the Enquiry 
into the Origin of the Human Appetites and Affections, 1 
notably in these words : " By association I mean that power 
or faculty by which the first appearance of two or more ideas 
frequently in the mind, is for the most part changed into a 
lasting, and sometimes into an inseparable union." Mill's 
analysis of the active or ethical phenomena of the mind was 
more explicit and accurate than Hartley's ; but, on the othei 
hand, he did not apply the doctrine of association to muscular 
motion with the same success as Hartley, nor did he improve 
on the latter' s law of the three stages in the development of 
motive power, — automatic, voluntary, and secondarily auto- 
matic. His analysis, however, of the Will was certainly more 
full and satisfactory than Hartley's; indeed Hartley had no 
specific treatment of Volition as such, though he had a long 
discussion on Necessity or Mechanism (as he preferred to call 
it) and Freewill, — a subject omitted somewhat unaccountably 

1 In the Metaph. Tracts above referred to, p. 68. Cp. Mill's Analysis 
vol. i. p. 91. 



224 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

by James Mill — wherein he carefully distinguished between 
the " philosophical " doctrine of Freewill which asserts that a 
man can will two different things when all the previous and 
contemporary circumstances, internal and external, are the 
same, — a doctrine transparently false, — and the " practical " 
or popular doctrine of Freewill, which asserts that a man has 
control over his own actions, and can exercise choice between 
two different courses open to him,— a doctrine transparently 
true. This latter important distinction (not noticed by Mill) 
has no doubt helped to put moderns on the right track, and to 
show how meaningless is the controversy between so-called 
Libertarians and Necessitarians. 2 Mill's examination of Belief 
is much more profound and elaborate than that of his prede- 
cessor, but unfortunately is also less correct, because it bases 
Belief on the mere juxtaposition of two ideas in the mind, 
without postulating that irreducible element of conviction 
which Hartley saw was essential to this process, as distinguished 
from mere Imagination. Professor Bain it will be seen goes 
back to Hartley on this point, and does not follow Mill : he 
also (with Hartley) attaches great importance to action as the 
best, if not the only, evidence of Belief. In his system of 
Classification, too, Mill, so far as he ignores what have been 
since called " Natural Kinds/' and regards the process as 
resulting from nothing beyond a desire for economy in naming, 
distinctly retrogrades from Hartley. On the other hand, he 
makes advances on his forerunner's system, in his minute 
analyses of some of the abstract relative terms. But the 



2 It is beginning to be generally understood now that Liberty and 
Necessity are two disparate conceptions, and that to compare one with the 
other is like comparing an inch with a minute. The proper antithesis to 
Libert}' (in the sense in which it is used by Libertarians in the contro- 
versy) is Bondage, not Necessity ; to Necessity (in the sense in which it 
is used by Necessitarians) Chance, not Liberty. 



HARTLEY'S PREDECESSORS. 225 

differences in the matter of the two philosophers are also 
partly to be explained from the history of the Association 
Theory. 

IL We have already noticed [Part II. ch. i.] the forerunners 
of Hartley, namely, Aristotle, Elobbes, Locke, Gay, and his 
contemporaries Abraham Tucker and Condillac. Coleridge 
indeed [Biogr. Lit. ch. v.] proposes to add several names to 
these. He denies the claim of Hobbes's " discursus mentalis " 
to be an original solution of the difficulty : and says that these 
philosophers had been anticipated by Descartes in his treatise 
he Methodo, which appeared a year before the Human- Nature. 
Descartes constructed on association principles a theory ot 
human language and naming, much as Mill did after him. 
But, like Hartley, he resorted to a physical hypothesis to 
explain the intellectual operation, and for that purpose brought 
in "nervous fluids" and material configurations of the brain, 
instead of, like Aristotle and Mill, resting content with the latter 
as ultimate and irreducible. In his physical doctrines he headed 
the class of " humoral pathologists" (as Coleridge calls them), as 
opposed to the other physicists headed by Hartley, who resorted 
to vibrations and an oscillating aether, 3 or to the more modern 
sect who appeal to " chemical composition by electric affinity." 
Nor is it certain (according to Coleridge) that there was much 
originality in Hume's Essay on Association, the idea of which 
treatise he is suspected of having borrowed from St. Thomas 
Aquinas's Commentary on the Parva Naturalia of Aristotle. 4 



3 These two rival theories are clearly described by Gay in the Enquiry 
above mentioned [p. 60]. The nerves in the former case are regarded 
says Gay, as bundles of threads or fibres, along which a tremor passes 
during sensation ; in the latter case, they are considered as tubular, and 
filled with a subtle fluid, or animal spirits. On Vibrations, see further 
Hibot [Contemp. Engl. Psgck., Er.g. Transl.'] p. 282, sqq. 

* A copy of this work, once in Hume's possession, was found to have 



226 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

Moreover, the functions of Association had been set out long 
before even Hobbes by the non-scholastic Aristotelians Me- 
lanchthon, Ammerbach, and Ludovicus Vives. The upshot of 
Coleridge's account of these pre-Hartleian gropings is that they 
were all based on the teaching of the " gran maestro di coloro 
che sanno : " and that, moreover, Aristotle was often nearer to 
the truth than those of his successors who sought to improve 
upon him, in that, while clearly setting down in the De Animd 
five distinct principles of association/ he yet guarded himself 
against going beyond what the facts warranted, and sternly 
rejected physical hypotheses. 

Such then was the intellectual ancestry of Hartley. Be- 
tween the commencement of Hartley's and the close of James 
Mill's life, we find in the same way of thinking Priestley 
and the elder Darwin, and other disciples of Hartley, and, in 
France, Condillac. From the last-named, however, Mill (accord- 
ing to his son) did not derive nearly so much aid as from 
Hartley, compared with whose painstaking suggestons Con- 
dillac's generalizations seemed barren and void. [J. S. Mill's 
AufoL p. 68]. 

Tucker with his " translation/' and Brown with his hints 
as to "relative suggestion," which were their respective names 
for association, (though the latter seems to have rather struck 
out a line of his own to some degree), were the next to follow. 
Belsham developed the moral side of Hartley's theory, and 
Alison (On Taste) the aesthetic. Helvetius, Rousseau, Cabanis, 
Darwin, and Bentham in their different ways paid attention to 
the educational aspect of Associationism ; Bentham and 

been read and carefully annotated by him, when subsequently lent to 2 
friend by Sir James Mackintosh, into whose hands it eventually came. 

5 Namely (1) connexion in time, whether simultaneous or successive, 
(2) vicinity in space, (3) necessary connexion, such as that of cause and 
effect, (I) similarity, (5) contrast. 



MILL AXD THE BENTHAMITES, 227 

Austin to the legal. The improvements in science which took 
place in the interval which separated the two men are also very 
remarkable, as well as the influence of Bentham and his fol- 
lowers in other and more practical directions, some account of 
which, as having largely helped to determine the line adopted 
by James Mill in philosophy as contrasted with that of Hartley, 
would seem to be necessary here. 

James Mill expresses himself, in the Fragment on Mack- 
infos//, very indignant at the supposition of there being in 
existence any Benthamite school at that time. Still there is 
no doubt, — indeed, it has been recorded by J. S. Mill in the 
Autobiography , — that there existed a body of men distinguished 
by certain common characteristics, aiming at certain common 
objects, and united together by a bond of strong moral and 
intellectual sympathy: the most prominent names among them 
being those of Bentham and James Mill. These common 
characteristics were a deep-rooted love of clearness and simpli- 
city in writing and conversation, a tendency to mathematical 
precision, an utter contempt for sentiment in ethics, and for 
the graces of style and art in composition, an ardour and 
even bitterness in controversy, an abhorrence of everything 
which seemed like mystery, or presumed to defy the analytical 
processes in which they manifested such an unbounded belief. 
The common objects resulted from the common creed. 
Believing that men were formed by circumstances, these phi- 
losophers attached the highest value to education and legislation. 
Believing that the greatest good of the greatest number was 
the proper end of action and thought, they were always busy 
propagandists of their tenets. Believing that theory was all- 
powerful, that no hard and fast line could be drawn between 
the theoretically sound and the practically feasible, and that 
every simple and intelligible system only required energy and 
determination to convert it at once into a body of maxims 

Q * 



228 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

and motives, they set to work in all directions with undaunted 
applications of their brand-new doctrines to the crude material 
of fact. And it is in. these applications that Associationism 
and Utilitarianism have achieved their highest triumphs. It 
is difficult to overrate the importance of the effects which the 
former doctrine has had in the region of education (however 
incomplete an explanation we may deem it of the entire opera- 
tions of the mind), or of the latter in legislation (under 
Bentham's and Austin's auspices), however unsatisfactory an 
account we may think this again of duty and the entire moral 
life in all its relations. Though we may believe that the mind 
is something far too subtle in its workings to be explained on 
the iEolian harp principle as the sport of circumstance, and 
the conscience not simple enough to be accounted for on the 
hypothesis of metaphorical pulleys and weights and levers ; 
yet these chemical and mechanical laws (true in themselves, 
and only false when offered as interpreting more than they can) 
are of the utmost use in the practical fields to which they have 
been applied, since for these purposes it does no harm, and 
produces no error in our calculations, to regard men as building 
their habits of thought solely on association, or as led to act 
solely by a consideration of their own interests. In Legislation 
and in Education, as in Political Economy (as has been before 
noticed), we are at liberty to isolate special characteristics and 
tendencies of human nature from those ordinarily acting in 
conjunction, and intertwined, with them. But the result of 
this isolation, when put forward as a full and complete theo- 
retical justification of morality, is not allowable ; and this is the 
mistake which the school of Bentham and James Mill, as also 
some of their successors, though to a far less degree, have made. 
The theories in question are it is true palpable and plausible to 
ordinary intellects : most theories containing one principle 
are. " Here is something we can understand, couched in 



MILL AXD THE BENTHAMITES. 229 



plain language/' is the Philistine's encomium : but though 
plain language deserves all praise where it is possible, the 
plainness and popularity of the doctrines conveyed, when we 
consider the complexity of the phenomena analyzed, make 
rather against than for their truth. 6 The simplicity affected by 
their professors is of itself calculated to excite suspicion in the 
minds of the reflective. Is everything, one asks, really so 
simple as this ? Are we to believe that we can only move 
people to act rightly from motives of self-interest (however 
refined that self-interest may be) ? Is it true that one man or 
body of men in the possession of political power will constantly 
endeavour to rob all the other citizens for their own advantage, 
unless restrained by checks and police ? Do we account for 
the mazes of a creative imagination, when we have talked of 
trains and sequences of ideas, and dispelled (to our own satis- 
faction) all "mystery" on the subject? This tendency to 
simplification, and devotion to theory, characteristic of the 
Bent-ham school was shared in ample measure by James Mill. 
J. S. Mill [Preface to the Analysis, pp. xix, xx,] notices this 
feature, accompanied "with a certain impatience of detail" in 
his father's philosophizing. The latter was so anxious to seize 
upon some commanding and comprehensive law under which all 
the phenomena might be subsumed, — to attain some " specular 
mount " from which a flood of light might be thrown on the 
widest possible extent of material, — that minutiae escaped 
him. Correction and modification were not his strong points. 
He longed to jump at once to the "Summa Axiomata," without 
either verifying them afterwards by a reference to intermediate 
laws, or previously passing through the intermediate laws to 
them. He takes a simple and obvious principle, Association. 

6 As Malebranche sa}-s [7)e Inquirendd Vcritate, lib. iii. p. 194] : " the 
assent and approbation of the vulgar on a difficult subject is a sure 
argument of the falsity of the opinion to which the assent is given." 



230 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

and fits it off-hand to every imaginable case. He will re- 
cognize no conception, no faculty, as ultimate. All must be 
reduced to this principle. Hartley indeed was not quite so 
exacting in his assertion of the authority of this law ; but then 
his idol was an idol of the theatre, as well as of the tribe, in 
the shape of the all-sufficient vibrations. We find, conse- 
quently, that the efforts of Mill's successors in the way of 
improving the general theory were directed almost entirely to 
rigidly limiting its extensive application both by its founder 
and its " second founder/' and to the recognition of more and 
more ultimate faculties and metaphysical conceptions. In this 
way Professor Bain has recognized an unanalyzable element in 
Belief and in Muscular Resistance [Anal. ii. 31], and similarly 
J. S. Mill holds Memory and Expectation to involve Belief, and 
Belief to be ultimate, as also [see his work on Hamilton] the 
conception of the Self. All these James Mill considers to be 
cases of Association ; and, by his extreme anxiety to maintain 
this view, he is sometimes driven into curious straits, as, for 
instance, where he is forced to explain Belief by the Self (or 
Personal Identity), and the Self by Belief. Resemblance, 
Difference (as a case of Resemblance) Quality, Causality, 
which James Mill equally holds to be instances of Asso- 
ciation, J. S. Mill regards as either elementary, or at all 
events involving something beyond Association : and to 
the ultimate elements of Resemblance and Contrast, Professor 
Bain adds Contiguity [Anal. ii. 120]. Indeed the latest 
professors of the doctrine agree as to the unanalyzable 
nature of nearly all the leading metaphysical conceptions 
and distinctions, which James Mill believed quite capable 
of analysis, excepting only the distinction between Sensa- 
tions and Ideas, which even he was compelled to postulate 
as ultimate. 

We may notice a few more instances of the manner in which 



DEFECTS OF MILLS THEORIES. 231 



James Mill's successors split up supposed identities, and 
modified the application of that Law of Pareimony — (" causes 
and existences are not to be multiplied more than is neces- 
sary") — to which be gave such lindiscri urinating allegiance. 
Nothing is more characteristic of James Mill's philosophy 
than the denial of the distinction between having a feeling 
and attending to or being conscious of* it. This distinction 
however is restored on sufficient grounds by J. S. Mill and 
Professor Bain, as also the distinction between having two 
feelings and being conscious of their difference (also ignored 
by James Mill) : for, though the law of Relativity (in Professor 
Bain's sense) undoubtedly holds good ; that is, we only know 
feelings from their relations to their opposites, and, as Hobbes 
says, " to have the same sensation continuously, is to have no 
sensation at all ; " jet the exercise of the discriminative 
function on any particular occasion is not the same thing as 
the having sequent sensations, but is an element superadded 
to it, and separable from it in thought. Again in treating of 
sensations, Mill is so absorbed with the idea of the importance 
and efficacy of his universal solvent, that to make way for 
it, he even sets aside, or relegates to an inferior place, direct 
physical agencies, as, for example, in his account of the morbid 
trains of thought attendant on a diseased digestion, or of the 
sensations accompanying nervous bodily contortions, which 
are in reality concomitant effects of one and the same external 
cause, — or, again, of the painful emotions excited directly by 
the sight of another's suffering, and leading to acts of compas- 
sion, — all of which mental phenomena he ascribes to associa- 
tion alone. In these instances also his successors have set him 
right, and have declined to follow his excessive tendency to 
simplification. Abstraction, Ratiocination, and the Syllogizing 
process which James Mill dismisses in a very summary fashion 
as verbal merely, as well as Consciousness [Atial. i. 227 sqq.] 



-o- 



HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



and Reflection {Anal. ii. ch. xv.) are also recognized by J. S. 
Mill and Professor Bain as more intricate in their nature and 
working" than to be comprehended within the four corners of 
the law of Association. To the "Will, which James Mill 
describes as a state of mind dependent upon contemporary and 
previous internal states and external circumstances, Professor 
Bain, though holding it to be merely "a collective^ term for 
all the impulses to motion or action," yet gives a far more 
independent and important place in his moral theoiy. James 
Mill's analysis of Classification as based on Association, and 
referrible to a desire of economy, is insufficient to explain any 
but the most elementary groupings, and leaves out of account 
scientific classification altogether, as well as " Natural Kinds/' 
and the Law of Relativity (to which we have alluded above) 
or knowledge by apprehension of doubles, which, and not any 
such desire as Mill suggests, led to the construction of relative 
terms to express the related feelings. Other instances of the 
gaps in James Mill's system will be noticed presently. 
Meanwhile we have chosen such of them only as exemplify the 
dominant impulse towards simplification of phenomena, to the 
undue disregarding of qualifications, which vitiated so many 
theories of the Benthamite school. 

The peculiarities of this body of thinkers have been noticed, 
both by a vehement adversary, who afterwards saw cause to 
moderate his antipathy, [Lord Macaulay, in his review of 
James Mill's Essay on Government, — Edinb. Rev., No. 92], and 
by one who was at first a member of the sect, but afterwards 
became a more qualified admirer [J. S. Mill, in his Autobio- 
graphy']. The adherents of Bentham were men possessing a 
few ideas clearly conceived, which they were thoroughly bent 
on carrying out into practice. These ideas were admirable in 
themselves, and when not put forward to explain "all time and 
all existence.-" In a restricted sense, for instance, the doctrine 



NEGLECT OF EVA GEYA TION. 233 

of Association was accepted by Sir James Mackintosh, 7 

though its extensive use by Mill found in him an uncom- 
promising' adversary. 8 Mansel [Metaphysics, pp. 233 — 2 18] 
treats it in the same respectful manner, and with the same 
limitations; while Sir W. Hamilton 9 devoted considerable 
attention to it, and was led by his examination of its principles, 
as expounded by its various teachers, to evolve his three laws of 
Repetition, Redintegration, and Preference, and to add some 
important elements and corrections to the original form of the 
theory. All these men were opponents of the doctrine only 
when pushed beyond its proper bounds into regions where it 
had no title, and could do no good. But it was to propagate 
their views on Association and Utility in every possible direc- 
tion, and apply them to ever// field of thought and action, that 
the school ot Bentham was (consciously or unconsciously) formed 
and took shape. 

Some processes of human intelligence, however, resisted 
their analytical approaches to the last. No Benthamite could 
ever make much of the Imagination. They practically con- 
fessed themselves beaten, by conspiring to ignore it. Any- 
thing calculated to stimulate the fancy was disapproved. 
James Mill condemned the drama, and did not think much 
of Shakespeare. He has in one of his Commonplace Books a 
dialogue written by himself on the subject of players and 
theatrical representations, very little to their advantage, and 
quotes with approval Johnson's disparaging remarks on 
Garrick. His first literary production was a squib on a theatre 
in the True Briton newspaper, March 12, 1803. Bentham 
thought poetry mere misrepresentation, though, it is true, he 

' In a lecture referred to by Coleridge, Biogr. Lit. ch. v. 

8 Sect. vi. of the Dissertation. 

9 Vid. his note on the Association Theory, in his edition of Reid, 
p. 911 sqq. 



234 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

was passionately devoted to Music, the one form of Art which 
seems to secure votaries, when others are neglected. They 
banished the cultivating influence of the Imagination from 
their mental atmosphere, or explained it on precise scientific 
principles, which only betrayed the awkwardness which never 
fails to characterize the application of method to a material to 
which it is inapplicable. 1 They gave emotion the name of 
sentimentality, with what effect on the younger members of 
their clique, the eloquent pages of J. S. Mill's Autobiography 
are the best evidence. Human nature cannot be maimed in 
this way without eventual detriment. One side of it cannot 
be stifled and suppressed without injury to the whole. J. S. 
Mill, indeed, confesses that it was nothing but this suppres- 
sion of the emotional and imaginative impulses which made 
him for a time despair of the world and of himself. It was a 
grievous mistake in reformers such as were James Mill, 
Bentham, Austin, and others, if they wished to rear up other 
reformers to succeed themselves, to ignore the importance of 

" The shaping fantasy that apprehends 
More than cool reason ever comprehends," — : 

for of such stuff are reformers, if not made, at all events kept 
to their work in spite of constant disillusion and defeat. 

In addition to this dwarfing of the fancy, and exclusive 
attention to the reason in its discursive rather than in its con- 
structive use, together with the necessarily accompanying 
ruggedness and asperity of style, 2 and a terminology bar- 

1 On the inapplicability of precise methods to such material as artistic 
emotion, see Ribot {Contemjp.Encj. Psych. (Eng. Tr.)], p. 232, Mansel's 
Metaphysics, p. 392, Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. xlvi., 
Jouffroy's Cours d'Esthetique. 

2 James Mill, Bentham, Austin, Grote, Professor Bain are all noticeable 
for the baldness of their style. On the other hand, no more beautiful 



DEVOTION TO SYSTEM. 235 



barons, as in Bentham's case, or slovenly, as in Mill's, 1 — in 
addition to tbese men's intolerance, blindness and bitterness in 
controversy, 4 to their contempt for the elegancies, and (in James 
Mill's case) even for the pleasures of life, 5 and to their efforts 
to banish " the mysterious " by means of analysis which 

" Viewing all objects unremittingly 
In disconnexion dead and spiritless, 
And still dividing, and dividing still 
Breaks down all grandeur ;" 

— 111 addition to all these characteristics of the school, we 
have to notice the extraordinary devotion of these men to 
new-born theories, and their profound conviction that a 
syllogism could always be applied red-hot to existing social 
conditions. James Mill particularly detested the popular 
separation of Theory from Practice. He has in his Common- 
place Books several pages of argument levelled against this 
false distinction. To him everything true in theory was 
right in practice. J. S. Mill relates \Auioh. p. 32] a charac- 
teristic anecdote of his father's impatience at his using a mode 
of expression which implied a sharp separation between these 
two conceptions ; and in the elder Mill's works 6 we are con- 
style in philosophical writing has ever been seen than that of J. S. Mill. 
James Mill avows his contempt for manner in his Fragm. on Mackintosh 
(p. 127), —"if the matter of a book of philosophy be good, the manner 
is a thing of ver}- inferior consequence." Cp. Hobbes, " true philosophy 
rejects of set purpose nearly every kind of ornament.'' 

3 "Active phenomena of mind," — definition of Disposition, Affection, 
Motive, Will, &c. 

4 Witness James Mill's Fragm. on Mackintosh, and the dogmatic and 
dictatorial style of Bentham and Austin in speaking of views opposed to 
their own. 

5 J. S. Mill's Autobiography, p. 48. 

6 Fr. on Mack. pp. 285, 286. Essay on Education, p. 5. Analysis, 
vol. ii. p. 402. J. S. Mill's Autobiography, pp. 23, 37, 106. See also 



236 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

tinually coming 1 across strong* statements of the identity of the 
theoretically demonstrable and the practically advantageous, 
and of the dependence of art upon system. He was sanguine 
as to the possibility of altering the world by means of such 
schemes as Bentham's Chrestomathic Day-school, new Penal 
Codes, and proper Representative methods of government. 
He made as little allowance for the working of emotion and 
imagination in real life, as he admitted their presence to 
disturb a calculation or a conclusion. And, accordingly, he 
failed to see that the grossest fallacies may lurk behind the 
forms of the Schoolmen as well as within the flowers of 
rhetoric ; and that in endeavouring to apply a syllogism, 
supported by abstract propositions, to social phenomena, he 
was trying to catch water in a sieve. It is by the study of 
the comparative history and growth of these phenomena, 
accompanied by observation of existing needs and possible 
remedies, not by the purely individualistic treatment of the 
human mind, that a path is laid for successful reform. And 
it was these very pre-requisites which Mill ignored. 7 While 
lavishing contempt on the man who u for the tricksy word 
Defies the matter " of reason, he himself was for a tricksy 
method defying the matter of fact. It was the obvious insuffi- 
ciency of the purely Deductive Method in Politics to grapple 
with its material, which suggested to J. S. Mill what he 
called the Inverse Deductive Method, which is a sort of com- 
promise between the purely Deductive, and the purely Induc- 
tive advocated by Macaulay in his strictures on the former 
\_Edinb. Review, No. 97, pp. 188, 189], and which consists in 

one of Jainee Mill's articles on Indian affairs in the Edinburgh Review, 
vol. xvi. p. 136. 

7 And Hartley also, whose method was equally individualistic. See 
Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. 
p. 69. 



MILL'S CONCEPTION OF UTILITY. 217 

forming general laws from the observation and comparison of 

particulars, but afterwards verifying and testing them, by 

seeing whether or no they are deducible from the known 

elementary laws of human nature. [J. S. Mill's Autob. £09, 

21 0J. James Mill's habit of deducing practical conclusions 

from a very few simple principles of human nature, with 

scarcely any suspicion of the complexity and intricacy of the 

phenomena to which he was applying them, led him not only 

to hold false views of those fields of human activity which he 

considered in this light, but also to discard altogether all 

examination of the spheres to which such a method was not 

immediately applicable, such as those of Metaphysics (in the 

proper sense of the word), Art, and Religion. By neglecting 

these, he and his brethren marred the completeness of their 

doctrines, and gave a hard and repulsive look to the Utility 

and the Pleasure which they proclaimed. There seemed to be 

in the creed of Bentham and James Mill an indifference both 

to the past and to the future of the human race, — both to 

history and to religion. They had a large conception of the 

spatial extent over which utilitarian considerations and motives 

were to operate, — James Mill is continually advocating the 

widening of the circle of sympathy from Family to Friends, 

from Friends to Country, and from Country to Mankind, — 

but they do rrot seem to have taken much account of Time, as 

do the Positivists and other priests of humanity at the present 

day. Religion was regarded by James Mill merely as a social 

force (as we see in several articles in his Commonplace 

Books), just like Aristocracy, or any political institution/ not 

as a permanent sentiment in human nature, — an irresistible 

8 James Mill was not, however, so cynical as Bentham in his treat- 
ment of religion. Bentham wished to use it in legislation, like a <•..!]- 
stitutional monarch, merely to confirm the decrees of Utilitarianism, to 
reign and not to govern. 



2$S HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

stretching* out of hands towards the infinite. So too of the 
artistic impulse. In their entire system, the Associationisfc 
School of the last generation, though not confining their view 
to the Here, certainly appeared to confine it to the Now. But 
it is from the latter, quite as much as from the former, that 
the spirit of man is ever seeking to escape ; and on this desire 
it is that it constructs for itself Art, Poetry, Metaphysics, 
and Religion. 

Still we must recognize that in their steady application ot 
ideas to facts, James Mill and his circle were but following a 
long- established English habit and tradition. English philo- 
sophy has always been uncomfortable in the aether of pare 
abstractions, and has always instinctively run to illustration 
and application. In one sense no nation is so philosophical as 
the English, that is, in their way of illuminating small facts 
by large theories ; in another, no nation is so unphilosophical, 
that is, in their inability to keep the head from becoming 
dizzy amidst abstract ideas. To some nations, the Germans, 
for instance, philosophy is indeed, in Bacon's metaphor, the 
barren virgin consecrated to God ; to us, she is a useful maid- 
of-all-work. Unless our thinkers have in external facts their 
bases of operation and places of refuge, and in practical appli- 
cation their convenient outlets, they are uneasy. We rarely 
find men in England devoting themselves to philosophy, pure 
and simple; though many devote themselves absolutely to 
science. Those who take up philosophical pursuits in this 
country do so in the intervals of business or pleasure, (much 
as Plato describes men doing in his day,) and of this both 
Hartley and James Mill are conspicuous instances. Philo- 
sophy thus gains in popularity and influence on life, though it 
loses in thoroughness. Though we may call barometers and 
agricultural journals "philosophical," and encourage that 
" hairdressing on philosophical principles," which so scanda- 



MILLS INFL UENCE ON HIS DISCIPLES. 239 

lized Hegel/ yet we keep free from those endless logomachies 
and hair-splittings upon which even that great philosopher 
expended so much time and lost labour. The school of 
Bentham and James Mill are certainly not to be blamed on 
account of the useful, and even noble, impulse which led them 
to apply their theories to existing facts : what they were to be 
blamed for is having applied those theories too systematically 
and persistently, and without letting facts themselves to a great 
extent guide them in the process of application. The sanguine 
hopes conceived by the masters, and raised in the minds of the 
disciples, were doomed to cruel disillusion. Let any one who 
wishes to recognize the inevitable fate of all attempts at refor- 
mation with too simple a watchword, compare J. S. Mill's 
eloquent record of the enthusiasm with which he first read and 
studied Bentham, and of the confidence with which he felt that 
he had found in him " a creed, a doctrine, a philosophy ; in 
one among the best senses of the word, a religion/ ' with the 
description of his own state, when his education, with its pre- 
cocious and premature tendency to analysis, its cultivation of 
reason and neglect of imagination, had left him stranded 
K with a well-equipped ship and rudder, but no sail/' — when 
Association was found to enervate those creative forces of the 
mind which rule the world, — and when Pleasure and Self- 
interest turned out merely the delusive mirage which is never 
any the nearer reality for pursuing it. 1 A more powerful, 
because informal and involuntary, indictment of all theories 



9 Werke, xiii. 72, vi. 13. 

1 Cp. the Autobiography, pp. 66, 67 with pp. 134 — 150. One of the 
most curious examples of the morbid fostering of the analytic tendency in 
J. S. Mill, is furnished by the story which he relates of himself (p. 145) 
to the effect that the casual thought that musical combinationsmight one 
day be exhausted, gave him for days the greatest pain, and tended to 
destroy his enjoyment of music. 



240 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 



with a single solvent for every difficulty, could scarcely have 
been written. 

Several of the deficiencies noticeable in the writings of Hartley 
and James Mill have now been supplied, and many imperfec- 
tions removed, by their successors. The somewhat meagre 
outlines of the theory of Association in its original shape have 
been, and are still being, slowly filled out. A goodly army of 
disciples have extended its influence in all directions, and (what 
is far more important) have brought to bear upon it the issues 
of a variety of scientific investigations which have been in- 
augurated since James Mill's time. The supplemental matter 
furnished by these disciples constitutes the " wings " (as 
Niebuhr used to call his pupils) of Associationism and Utili- 
tarianism, which but for them would have long since sunk 
into oblivion. 

The first pioneer was the younger Mill, who has recognized 
the fact that though the masters of a doctrine may formally 
declare that they mean their " utility " to include all the 
objects of human interest (as did James Mill), yet this alone 
will not suffice to move men to accept the doctrine, or. to act 
upon its laws. It is (so far) barren and tautological, and the 
only means of giving it a definite colour and complexion, is 
the somewhat empirical one of observing the lives and practical 
principles of its advocates and professors. To find out what 
James Mill and his philosophical associates meant by man's 
interests, as they do not tell us (exjcept in general terms) them- 
selves, we must discover what they seem to mean by them in 
their mode of living and habits of thought. When we look at 
these, we find (as J. S. Mill did in time) that the interests and 
impulses of imagination and emotion are wofully neglected, 
that poetry, for instance; is defined to be " misrepresentation 
merely [Bentham], or else tolerated as " more easy to remember 
than prose," and therefore having a certain educational value 



FAULTS CORRECTED BY SUCCESSORS. 241 

[James Mill] ; that too much division and dissolution renders 
construction impossible in practice, and neglected in theory ; 3 
and that associations formed artificially by the dispensation of 
praise and blame do not after all lead to very exalted action or 
conceptions of morality. Accordingly the younger Mill (at 
some cost of consistency perhaps) did away with this neutral idea 
of utility and morality, recognized the necessity of the construc- 
tive element in thought (more particularly in Classification and 
Abstraction), and of the cultivation, for purposes of education, 
of the imagination, emotions, and passive properties of the 
mind, 3 and finally put the absurd controversy between the 
advocates of Free-Will, and of Necessity, on its proper footing. 4 
He perceived, moreover, that it would not be an unmixed good 
for men to be drilled, even into excellence, by educational 
methods and legislative devices, that the individual was of 
more importance than the type in moral life, and that there 
might be a despotism of systems and opinions quite as strong 
as those of persons and castes. 5 To precision in practical 

2 " Those who have studied the writings of the Association Psy- 
chologists must often have been unfavourabl}' impressed by the almost 
total absence, in their analytical expositions, of the recognition of any 
active element as spontaneit}- in the mind itself." [J. S. Mill's Dissert, 
and Discuss., vol. iii. p. 119, art. on Bain, who himself largely helped to 
restore the constructive functions of mind to their proper place ; he 
recognizes (e.g.) constructive associations as one species of associations 
in general.] 

3 See Autob., pp. 49 — 51, 15, 16, 110 — 113, 144, 151, where we may see 
James Mill's conception of pfletry, art, and emotion viyidly contrasted 
with the attitude of J. S. Mill when driven to Coleridge, Carlyle, and 
Wordsworth to seek satisfaction of those impulses which had been almost 
stifled in him by his education. Professor Bain gives Feeling or Emotion 
a large place in his theory, and thereby improves greatly on James Mill. 
See Eibot's Contemp. Eng. Psych. (Eng. Tr.), p. 246. 

4 Autobiography , p. 169. Cp. the chapter on Necessity in the 
Logic. 

5 See the Essay oil Liberty, and the Autob., pp. 255, 256. 

B 



242 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 



schemes he also opposed himself, though he still adhered to his 
father's scholastic terminology and orderly exposition in phi- 
losophy. 6 In regard to religion, he saw in later life the justi- 
fiability and even necessity of indulging the distinctively 
human tendency and aspiration, of which religion is one 
among other expressions, and which his father, to all appear- 
ances, ignored [Autob. 46,69]. In the explanation of intel- 
lectual phenomena, the most noticeable gaps in James Mill's 
system which were filled up by his son had reference to mathe- 
matical axioms and syllogistic reasoning, as to which Induc- 
tion was substituted as a basis in the place of the elder philo- 
sopher's Verbal Identity [Anal. vol. i. pp. 180—192]. The 
theories moreover of Naming, Causation, Belief, Memory, and 
Imagination have been greatly improved both by J. S. Mill 
and Professor Bain, as we have already seen in the course of 
these pages. [See also an admirable article on Knowledge 
and Belief by David Greenleaf Thompson, Mind, vol. ii. pp. 
309—335]. 

Another line has been taken up by such men as Mr. Herbert 
Spencer and George Henry Lewes, with the help of the re- 
sults of Biology, the Darwinian theory of Evolution, and 
other scientific laws, such as the Correlation of Forces. On such 

6 Autob. p. 18. The elder Mill's precision and accuracy of reasoning 
was attributable in large measure to his study of Plato. It is curious 
on what differently constituted minds Plato has exerted a large influence. 
One class of men (of whom the elder Mill and Bacon are examples) he has 
attracted by his reasoning and classifying powers, another class of men 
(Coleridge, Shelley, Hegel, &c.) by his imaginative genius. James Mill 
in earl} T life either wrote, or inspired, an article on the Platonic Dialogue. 
(See Bain's Life of James Mill, Mind, vol. i. p. 521.) The article in 
the 14th vol. of the Edinburgh Review (p. 187) on Taylor's trans- 
lation of Plato, though not mentioned by Professor Bain in his list, 
certainly looks as if it had been written by Mill. He was fond of writing 
dialogues himself on the Platonic model. [See Autob. p. 64] For the 
influence of Plato's method on him, see his son's Autobiography, p. 21. 



GAPS FILLED UP BY SUCCESSORS. 243 

principles, as applied to sensation physiologically, have heen 
founded new versions of the doctrines of the Inconceivability 
of the Opposite, and of Space and Time relations, which 
were very imperfectly handled by Hartley and James Mill. 
Hartley's doctrine of Vibrations appears in a very much altered 
form in G. H. Lewes's " neural tremors " and groupings. 
Researches into the physical conditions of thought in other 
respects, and into the connexion of body and mind, have been 
undertaken with considerable success, by Erasmus Darwin, 
Cabanis, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Maudsley, Professor Bain, Mr. 
Galton, &c, most of them belonging, like Hartley, to the 
medical profession. Psychology has been treated in Germany 
as a natural science by Lotze and Herbart, and, to a still 
further extent, by Helmholtz, Fechner, Maury, and Wundt, 7 
who have introduced a special science of Physiological Psy- 
chology, the germs of which are to be found in Hartley's 
Observations. The growth of the faculties of children from 
infancy has been made a subject of special study by M. 
Taine and Dr. Darwin. 8 The phenomena of the infancy of 
collective human life, gathered from the history and comparison 
of the institutions and customs of savage tribes, have been 
examined, with the happiest results, by Mr. Tylor and Mr. 
Herbert Spencer; and so a theory of the Social Organism, 
founded on the doctrine of Hereditary Transmission, has been 
established, which was wholly beyond the ken of Hartley and 
James Mill, who disregarded the past, and failed to contem- 

" As instances of the extraordinary extent to which mathematical forms 
are applied to every variety of material (in a way that would have 
delighted Hartley) we may refer to such ideas as that of a Hedonistic 
Calculus, Franklin's Moral Algebra (see Eibot, p. 247), the Golden 
Section of ^Esthetics (see below), and a Spectrum of Pleasure and Pain, 
all of which have been lately introduced. 

8 See Mind, vol. ii. pp. 252 sqq., and 236 sqq. (two very interesting 
articles). 

R 2 



244 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL, 

plate the human mind as growing* and progressive. 9 In 
politics too, the comparison of social data, customs, mythologies, 
&c, so wanting in the individualistic system of James Mill, 
and so earnestly advocated byMacaulay and J. S. Mill, has been 
undertaken by Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir Henry Maine, Mr. 
Freeman, and the French and English Positivists. In educa- 
tional science, many have now developed James Mill's sugges- 
tions ; x so that J. S. Mill could truly speak of education and 
its improvement as the subject of more, if not of profounder, 
study than at any former period in English history \_Auiob. 
p. 1], whereas James Mill was always complaining of the 
wretched systems of education in vogue during his time. The 
crude theories of Government and Legislation to which we 
have already adverted, have now been enormously,improved 
by the superior historical and comparative methods employed 
by Guizot, De Tocqueville, Sir Henry Maine, and others. 2 
The philological speculations, derived by James Mill from 
Home Tooke, have been superseded by those of Professor Max 
Muller, 3 and a large following, who have in this department 
rendered incalculable service to the theory of association. In 

9 Cp. an article by E. Flint on Associationism and the Origin of Moral 
Ideas, in Mind, vol. i. p. 321 sqq., and Kibot, Contemp. Eng. Psych. 
(Eng. Tr.), pp. 25, 26. 

1 Professor Bain (in his Education as a Science), Sir William Hamilton 
(Literature and Education, 1852), Mr. Herbert Spencer, and Godwin, hold 
James Mill's views as to the absurdity of society avenging itself on the 
malefactor, and not on the causes which make him what he is. [See Leslie 
Stephen's Hist, of Eng. Thought in the Eighteenth Cent., vol. ii. 
p. 267.] 

2 See the Autobiography of J. S. Mill, pp. 157—160, 201, 202, where 
the author notices with much acuteness the imperfections of his father's 
political theories. 

3 Science of Language, espec. vol. i. ch. 2, and an article en the 
Original Intention of Collective and Abstract Names, in Mind, vol. i. 
p. 345 sqq. Cp. Eibot, pp. 51, 52, and Mind, vol. i. p. 525. 



COXCL USION. 245 



fact the importance of philological laws, based on a careful collec- 
tion of data,, is now fully recognized in most systems of psycho- 
logy, not necessarily Associationist, such, for instance, as those of 
Mr. Morell and M. Kenan. The utter absence in the works 
of Hartley and James Mill of any satisfactory theory of the 
imaginative functions of the mind in relation to Art and 
Poetry has been remedied by the aesthetical treatises on associa- 
tion principles of their successors, Mr. James Sully {Sensation 
and Intuition, also three articles on Art and Psychology, 
in Mind, vol. i.), Mr. Grant Allen [Physiological sEslhetics, 
Mind, vol. ii. p. 38, and article on the Sublime, vol. iii. 
p. 324, &c), and, in Germany, Fechner and Zeising (with his 
law of the Golden Section, and other curious applications 
of mathematics to the phenomena of Art) . Lastly, the prin- 
ciples of Association have been used for the elucidation 
of history, by Grote, and in expounding the philosophy of 
history, by Buckle. 

In view of all these improvements and amplifications of the 
system of Hartley and James Mill, what are we now to say of 
the doctrines of Associationism and Utilitarianism, whether 
as originated by the masters, or as developed by the disciples ? 
What are the radical errors and defects in the theory as 
applied to explain Thought, Morality, the State, and Art, 
which not even the advances of biology and philology, and 
the allied forces of Evolution, Sociology, and Statistics, to- 
gether with the latest methods of collecting and comparing 
phenomena, have been able to remove ? On these wide ques- 
tions the reader will pardon us for declining to enter. To do 
justice to either side, or to represent the case with anything 
approaching to fairness, would lead us far beyond our present 
limits. Our aim has been to determine the place which 
Hartley and James Mill respectively filled in the history of 
the Association theory, and of what is now called Utilitarian- 



246 HARTLEY AND JAMES MILL. 

ism ; their relation to one another ; and the different veins of 
thought which the later of the two philosophers left f o be 
worked by his successors. What may be the value of the 
theory of Association as a whole, and when taken at its best, 
we leave the reader to determine, after having placed before 
him some of the materials for a decision. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. 



I. Authorities for the Lives. 

The life of David Hartley is recounted in the edition of his worts by 
his son (de q. vid. inf.), in the preface to the second volume. Some 
additional particulars are furnished by the article on Hartley in the 
Biographical Dictionary (edited by Chambers), and also in Rose's 
"Biographical Dictionary, vol. viii. Compare Watson's History of 
Halifax, and the Monthly Review, vols, liii., liv., lvi. 

The life of James Mill is chronicled in detail by Professor Bain in 
three articles contributed to the periodical called Mind (vol. i. pp. 97 — 116, 
509 — 531, vol. ii. pp. 59 — 55). The style and tone of these articles are, 
however, somewhat dry and unsympathetic. The character and in- 
fluence of the man is best depicted in the earlier part of J. S. Mill's 
Autobiography (pp. 1 — 205). The article on him in the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica by Andrew Bisset, assisted by J. S. Mill and David Barclay, 
and that in the Penny Encyclopaedia (vol. xv.), may also be consulted. 
Dr. Bowring's Life of Bentham, which contains references — though not 
always accurate — to that philosopher's friendship with, and influence upon, 
James Mill, may be looked at with advantage. 



II. Their Philosophical Writings. 

David Hartley : 

1. Conjecture Quadam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum Generatione, 
a short Latin treatise (no date) printed in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical 
Tracts of tJie Eighteenth Century, London, 1837. Contains the 
same views as the larger work, only much more succinctly expressed. 



248 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. 

2. Observations on Man, his Frame, Duty, and Expectations, 2 vols. 
1749. 

3. The same, in three vols. With notes and Essays by Dr. Pistorius, 
Rector of Poseritz, in the island of Riigen. Life by Hartley's son, 
&c. 1791 and 1801. 

4. Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind on the Principle of the 
Association of Ideas, with Essays relating to the subject of it. 
By Joseph Priestley, 1775. (This edition has the advantage of 
omitting the vibration theoiy, and the theological speculations. 
Otherwise it is the same as the above. Some of the Essays by 
Priestley, especially Essay II., are illustrative and useful). 

James Mill : 

1. Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. 1829. 

2. The same, edited by J. S. Mill, with notes by Grote, Professor Bain, 
and Andrew Findlafcer. 1869. [By far the better edition of the 
two in which to study the author, as the reader is furnished with the 
latest developments of the theory, as he proceeds.] 

3. The Fragment on Mackintosh. 1st edition (anonymous) 1835. 
2nd edition 1870. 

4. Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of the Press, 
Prisons and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law of Nations, and 
Education. Reprinted from the Supplement to the Encyclopedia 
Britannica. London, 1828. 

5. The Essays in the Edinburgh and other Reviews referred to above 
in the Life of James Mill (Part I. of this work). 



III. Elcjcidatoey Woeks. 

For Hartley : 

1. Gay's Dissertation on the Fundamental Principle of Virtue, pre- 
fixed to Edmund Law's Translation of Archbishop King's Essay on 
the Origin of Evil. 1732. 

2. The Treatise called An Enquiry into the Human Appetites and 
Affections, showing how each arises from Association (1747, 1753). 
in Dr. Parr's Metaphysical Tracts (referred to above). This is an 
anonymous production ; the name of the author being unknown even 
to Dr. Parr. E. Tagart [1855, a writer on Locke] attributes it to 
Gay. The style and thought in it are certainly very similar to that 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. 249 

in the above Dissertation by Gay. It is a piece of very cogent and 
lucid reasoning, and is well worth reading. 

3. Condillac's Originc des Connaisances Humaincs. This may advan- 
tageously be read with Hartley. 

4. Belsham (W.), Essays, Moral and Philosophical, 2 vols., 1799. 

5. Belsham (Rev. T.) Elements of Logic and Mental Philosophy. 
1802. This book James Mill reviewed [see his Life]. 4 and 5 are 
developments of Hartley's ethical and psychological theory. 

6. Antony Collins' Enquiry concerning Human JJberty, 1790 
[Collins holds the same views on the mechanical nature of Volition 
as Hartley, though he ignores both Vibrations and Association]. 

7. The introductory Essays of Dr. Priestley (above referred to). 

8. Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, 1794. 
(A very interesting development of Hartley's s} T stem of vibrations, 
associationist principles, and medical theories and illustrations.) 

9. Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 

10. Sir James Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical 
Philosophy, chiefly during the 17th and 18tA Centuries, 1830. 
Section on Hartley. 

11. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. Chapters v., vi., vii. 
For James Mill : 

1. Preface, by John Stuart Mill, to the Analysis. 

2. Edinburgh Revieic, No. 97 (March, 1829). .Review of the Essay on 
Government, by Macaula} r . 

3. J. S. Mill's Autobiography \SU (pp. 1—205). 
For both Hartley and James Mill : 

1. Ribot's Contemporary English Psychology [English Translation 
1873]. Gives a succinct history of the Associationist doctrines 
from Hartley to Professor Bain. Very little criticism ; exposition 
clear. 

2. Flint's criticism of Associ a tionism and the Origin of Moral Ideas, 
in the first volume of Mind. [The volumes of Mind, as far as that 
production has gone hitherto, will be found replete with matter from 
the Associationist's point of view] 

3. Alison On the Nature and Principles of Taste, 1790 (the doctrines 
of which work were adopted by James Mill in the sesthetical part of 
his system). 

4. Mangel's Metaphysics [pp. 233 — 248, and passim]. 

.Uberweg's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. (translated from the 4th 



250 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX, 

German edition by G. S. Morris, 1874). Especially the Appendix on 
late English Philosophy, by Dr. Noah Porter. 

6. G. H. Lewes 's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. (2nd edition). This 
should be referred to, because the history is written from the point cf 
view of Association, supported and enriched by the latest results of 
Positivism and the Sciences. 

7. Sir William Hamilton's elaborate note on the genesis and growth of 
Associationism in his edition of Eeid's Essay on the Intellectual 
Powers, pp. 911 sqq. 

8. Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (the part relating to Utilitarianism). 

9. Besides the above, if the reader wishes to follow out the Association 
theory in its numerous recent ramifications, or trace it back to its 
sources, he should consult the principal works of the authors men- 
tioned in Part III., a list of which will be given in any good history 
of philosophy, such as that by Uberweg. 



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